Google have announced two pieces of branding news in the last month. Firstly, they’ve introduced the Alphabet company name and secondly they’ve given the Google logo a new font. So what are they up to?
Alphabet is the new name for the Google holding company. Google now is much more than just a search engine, with companies such as YouTube alongside ventures like a driverless car. Whilst these were all setup within the Google company, there wasn’t really the normal set of corporate controls in place. Now Google can start up a new company, within the Alphabet group, which is separate from Google. If the new company doesn’t work, they can close it easily. If it goes on to do well, they can give it more resources or expect the company to stand on it’s own two feet.
This will help Google take greater risk with new ventures because they can just close a subsidiary company if it runs out of money. Each business is then fully accountable for it’s profits and losses and reports to Alphabet. Google founder, Larry Page, says it all will create a simpler structure for a now diverse group of companies.
Then Google followed that news up with a new Google logo…..
The new Google logo appears bold, simple, friendly, clean and stylish. Some would say it is child-like in its visual effect with its bright colouring made even more prominent with the change from a regular serif to a very circular and slightly heavier sans-serif typeface, but you must agree it has impact. It is a ‘larger step’ evolution rather than a full revolution.
Google’s logo update
The new logo seems to have been produced to formalise and encompass the range of ever increasing multi-media product ranges that Google produce and are developing. It also seems to follow Google’s new material design ethic of flat design, animated and layered icons and page elements. An interesting point is that the new typeface can more readily shrink down and remain readable at smaller sizes, helpful in ‘future proofing’ for smaller devices like phones and watches.
The single multi-coloured G adaptation of the logo is clever allowing the fitting of the brand recognition into the tightest of spots like Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, Skype and Linkedin do already. You will always get objections to new design, either genuine or for effect, but overall the new Google logo appears to be an effective and welcome result so far. Let us know what you think of the new design.