Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google’s look, evolved

googleblog.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 447 posts

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#131

Post by jtuente »

nailer wrote: post #18
raldi wrote: post #9

2008 HN discussion from when the outgoing "little blue g" favicon was introduced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211518 In it, Dustin Curtis criticizes Google (rather rightly, in my hindsight-enhanced opinion) for a Marissa-Mayeresque design process of "Make 300 logo variants with pseudorandom permutations, and then pick your favorite." Looking at those permutations now ( http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/S…

Interestingly, the blue g favicon is still there on the front page at https://www.google.com/favicon.ico (cache is off).

But it's updated on, at least, www.google.ca

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#132

Post by d23 »

shogun21 wrote: post #81
shiftpgdn wrote: post #41

For a company with so much money I find it amazing how often they turn out products with ugly/unfriendly user interfaces.

Google is putting a much greater emphasis on design, and their recent products show. What recent products are you thinking of?

I don't usually find their interfaces ugly per se; if anything I find they've made sacrifices in the user experience for the sake of making things prettier.

I can't count the times Google Maps inexplicably zooms out to show me my directions to a coffee shop 10 minutes from me at the level of the entire state. Or when I type in "home" (which I have set), it suggesting I travel to a place in London called "Home Sweet Home" (I'm from the US). Or sometimes just zooming all the way out to show me my location at the global scale when I want to know what's near me.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#136

Post by ryandrake »

raldi wrote: post #9

2008 HN discussion from when the outgoing "little blue g" favicon was introduced: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=211518 In it, Dustin Curtis criticizes Google (rather rightly, in my hindsight-enhanced opinion) for a Marissa-Mayeresque design process of "Make 300 logo variants with pseudorandom permutations, and then pick your favorite." Looking at those permutations now ( http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_7ZYqYi4xigk/S…

I've never understood that criticism. Business decisions should be data driven. You test new signup flows to see which one onboards users better. You test advertising changes to see which one converts better. Why should a logo design or a title bar color be any different? Without testing each iteration, how do you know which one has the best effect on whatever success metrics you're using? I can understand if you're worried about optimizing to a local maxima, but that's not a criticism of A/B testing, it's a criticism of the diversity of the available inputs.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#137

Post by kuschku »

raldi wrote: post #31
mahouse wrote: post #20

I'll be the first one to say it: I liked the older better. There was literally nothing wrong with it, it did not look dated at all.

We've been using the new logo internally for a week. Give it a day, and then go back and look at the old logo, and then tell me how dated it looks.

(a) It still shows the old logo on Google.de

(b) The new one looks overly simplistic – and too geometric. It ignores the lessons typographs have learnt in centuries. Usually, you want glyphs that look balanced – the new logo does not look balanced.

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#138

Post by Theodores »

ilovecomputers wrote: post #67
raldi wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been using the new logo internally for a week. Give it a day, and then go back and look at the old logo, and then tell me how dated it looks.

My series of responses within the span of 30 minutes: * "It looks like fridge magnets for kids! I don't like it; the iconic lower case g is gone cause of designers obsession of san-serif == modern." * "Glad that they continue to embrace their playful culture tho." * "You know what, it's growing on me." * "Haha, they tilted the e, how cute. Oh god what is happening to me!?" * "Geeze, how old is Google books? They have…

..."Now, what did the old logo look like!?!"

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#139

Post by biot »

ianbicking wrote: post #97

I like it except I wish they had kept the old kind of lower case g (TIL it's called a "double story g": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G#/media/File:LowercaseG.svg ), there's something pleasantly unnecessary about that kind of g.

Yeah I like it too. And thanks for the "double story g"... I always referred to it as "those scissor handles g": http://www.ekal.pk/barber-scissors/fancy-scissors-070s.jpg

Re: Google’s look, evolved

#140

Post by dheera »

josso wrote: post #99
artursapek wrote: post #25

The favicon still hasn't changed: https://www.google.com/favicon.ico I can't imagine the nightmare it must updating the logo for a company like Google. There must be so many forgotten places that will be missed.

I visited Google Dublin last year and found that they still used the old beveled Google-logo for e.g. letters and papers. Not the slightly beveled logo from 2010-2013, but the old one from 1999-2010.

The Google app engine also still uses the beveled logo with the shadow.
Post reply on HN