Turbomilk

How to draw a good icon for Google

Author: Denis Kortunov
17 June 2008

Not so long ago we berated the new Google icon and called it bad. But denouncing something that is not yours is easy! But what icon would be good? We decided to answer this question: let’s take four designers and make them draw a good icon for Google. Such approach we call running ‘a creative boutique’.

Story by Denis Kortunov

Actually, I sincerely believe that Google needs some kind of a symbol. It has to be simple and classy. It is clear that there are no direct metaphors; therefore, the symbol will likely be out of the blue. At first the icon will be chastised by everyone, but then everybody will get used to it and settle down.

But I have subdued to a weakness by basing my icon on the current Google’s corporate identity. So what do we have? Six letters written in Catull font. Letters G and O appear in the name twice. Out of two O’s, as you can guess, we won’t be able to get anything good. So let’s stick to the capital G for its simplicity and beauty.

Plus, we have four colors present in the logo. Blue and red appear twice.

So what shall we take for our future favicon? I will base it on the capital ‘G’ and I cannot really escape using the corporate colors: two at minimum but better all four. I will not use the font – I do not really like it and in the small icon size it will be hardly recognizable.

I will take something simple as the basis. For instance, a circle. Or several colored circles. Here is what I got first:

Looks rather cool: three corporate colors, open circles. You could even see letter G if you try really hard. And we have obvious associations with a target. But 16×16 size revealed problems – the icon did not come out good. I continued my search.

Now we have all four colors and the letter ‘G’ is more obvious. Let’s add some glamor:

And here is the new favicon in action:

Story by Yegor Gilyov

Since the subject of letters was brightly (literally and figuratively) revealed by Denis, I decided to offer a more abstract symbol. A ball. What can be simpler than a ball? Besides various balls have been used by other products featured by Google:

A sphere may be a metaphor for the Globe or a ball. It seems to entice you: “come play with me” which suits the Google’s image as a young and joyful company which oftentimes defies the generally accepted corporate rules.

Looking at Google’s logo let me present the ball in four colors:

Let’s add some volume (without making it too complex since we need a 16×16 icon):

I added some more glare and shadowing and voila:

Story by Valera Namazov

It is not a secret that Google has long time quit being just a search engine. It is a real mix of various technologies and services. Conclusion: we mix all corporate colors in our TurboBlender!

Then we open Wikipedia and learn that the name Google comes from googol — the decimal number represented by one followed by 100 zeroes. Clearly, we have no other way but to create a round favicon with a hole.

Let’s size it down to 16×16:

And this is how it appears in the browser:

Story by Dmitry Joukov

East or West Google is the best! But why? Because Google features excellent search engine and the whole kit-and-caboodle of other apps.

S-o-o-o-o, what makes for a good search? I believe that search is primarily about results. Now I said it all and you will be able to steal my idea. For those guessing I hereby enclose an illustration.

So we take them and use them. Now we have to see what we finally got.

The icon itself looks like the infinity sign, which is not an odd thing for Google.