Google’s new favicon: the end of an era (poll)
There are times when a company decides to change its logo. And there are times when it decides to change its favicon.
Either way, it has a huge effect on the consumer, because he/she has to adapt to the change.
Ambrosia Software did this recently, to illustrate, and it showed that “ASW” was letting go of its “sketched” look to go towards a new “modern” look.
And now, Google is doing the same thing.
I noticed it this Friday at noon.
This:
And it has a special gradient on it, too:
So, good or bad?
In my oh-so-humble opinion, it was probably time they changed it. Google has had that favicon for years now, and it did start to look “strange” among all those fancy new designs sprouting up all over the web. And in the new Firefox 3 (not yet officially released, still in “Release Candidate” testing stage):
But it marks the end of an era.
The old “G” was recognisable a mile away. It was a capital letter referring to a company that was becoming capital.
Now, Google is by far the “web search” industry leader for consumers in their everyday web experience, and it probably doesn’t need to make itself known much more.
But why a lower-case “g”?
I guess we’ll have to wait to hear from Google to find out.
While I like the simplicity of the favicon design, it doesn’t stand out anymore.
Plus, as you can see in the second screenshot (Safari) and the one below (Firefox 3), it doesn’t stand out at all when you hover over it on Mac browsers (no idea how it looks on a PC):
Perhaps they could have done away with that “fancy” gradient, and made the outline more defined.
Then again, it is much less bulky than the old one had become.
Will this lead Google to redesign its oh-so-convenient website?
Small update: it’s all over the web now. It seems most people prefer the old favicon, but many of the opinions voiced here and there tend to show that people either hate it or like it a lot. Funny how when Google sneezes, the internet shivers.
Update 2: poll added:
[poll id="2"]
Update 3: it seems that Google has published a small explanation of their choice. Interesting read, though it doesn’t convince me: it seems they are accepting new designs, if you have any ideas!
Update 4, 11th of January 2009: well, they’ve re-designed it again.
30 May 2008 at 14:28
I like it! and I hope this leads them to redesign their oh-so-convenient, but very dull and boring website
30 May 2008 at 14:53
I don’t like the new Google favicon – sure, the old one was pretty basic and it got old, but a simple lowercase blue G to replace it? It looks like some intern was building the new icon in 5 minutes.
Google, please bring back the old one and try harder to come up with something cool.
30 May 2008 at 15:09
I hate it!! The old one looks so much more “Google-like”…
And the new icon looks very amature, especially when compared to the old one.
Now, I know change can be healthy, but I’m not so convinced in this case.. I really hope Google don’t lose their image that they have built up over the years.
It may seem that Google are trying to become more “child friendly” and slightly less “corporate” in image.
But as long as they don’t change their whole logo and/or overall page design, then I think this is a change that I can live with. The next logical step, however, would be to change the logo. :/
30 May 2008 at 16:29
Stop saying “oh-so”
30 May 2008 at 17:05
@bob: What the…. ? You talking to me?
30 May 2008 at 17:07
To me, because I used “oh-so” twice
30 May 2008 at 17:10
@Peter Craddock: Oh, okay.. I didn’t even notice that!!
30 May 2008 at 17:16
Small update: it’s all over the web now. It seems most people prefer the old favicon, but many of the opinions voiced here and there tend to show that people either hate it or like it a lot. Funny how when Google sneezes, the internet shivers.
30 May 2008 at 17:22
“Funny how when Google sneezes, the internet shivers.”
Haha, that’s very true..
30 May 2008 at 17:37
The old one was at least more distinct, I could ignore it when going through my history unless I specifically wanted to find a previous search result in my history. Now it’s competing for my attention as I try and find websites I’ve browsed in the last hour.
I don’t think the new one is distinct enough for my mind to filter it as I’m reading my history. They need something “pretty” but distinct enough to be ignored if required.
30 May 2008 at 17:42
@Matthew1471: …or maybe you just need to get used to the new one..?
30 May 2008 at 17:42
Ironically the favicon.ico on *this* website is broken in my browser (IE7, Vista SP1)
30 May 2008 at 17:46
@Ollie: I considered that idea but I think the new one blends in a lot more with other websites (I assume that was the point).. The old one was crass but at least distinct. With less color and the “modern” look it fits in with all the “modern” websites.
I think it needs to be quite bold to separate it from the other websites, this new icon is not bold, I think that’s what it comes down to. It won’t become more bold over time.
30 May 2008 at 17:46
@Matthew: Unfortunately, that’s because I saved it as a PNG favicon, and IE7 doesn’t seem to agree with that…
30 May 2008 at 18:18
> Ironically the favicon.ico on *this* website is broken in my browser (IE7, Vista SP1)
Great, everyone who uses IE _and_ Vista should punished to death, and well that’s a beginning -.-
30 May 2008 at 19:25
@Peter: http://converticon.com/
30 May 2008 at 19:27
(that was meant for Peter Craddock not Peter Griffin
)
30 May 2008 at 19:30
Thanks Ollie. Hopefully it will work now… Might go bother my brother to test it under XP.
30 May 2008 at 19:36
+1 for the ‘old’ icon.
I really hope they revert to the old one or design a new new one.. in the google colours.
@Calum I doubt they will and hope they dont redesign their website. I dont think its dull and boring, but its not suposed to be exciting.. most people are only on it for a few seconds on their way to another site.
30 May 2008 at 20:13
I don’t like it. I prefer the old Google icon. (Which could soon become its logo?) This new one looks “insubstantial,” where as the old one one large. You knew who owned the old logo. The new could belong to a “Gregory Craddock,” who may or may not exist.
On the Windows side of things, very little is changed by this new favicon. Bookmarks to Google still use the old favicon and the quicksearch bar in Firefox still uses the old favicon. That little speck of grey transparency near the bottom drives me crazy, though. I’d rather have a solid background rather than a gradient. An transparency gradiet in this case.
30 May 2008 at 21:52
somebody made a greasemonkey script to fix it back to the old one:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/27548
31 May 2008 at 12:24
Oy, this is a bad move. Unless Google is planning to change their world-renowned logo to be just “google” without starting with a capital G (no!), they really need to keep the favicon as a capital G, not a lowercase g. It doesn’t look at all like it belongs to the same company as their logo, until eventually you realize “oh, it’s the fourth letter from the logo”. Bad. Regardless of what style the favicon is, the letter G really needs to be capitalized.
31 May 2008 at 13:04
The favicon now works in IE7…
3 June 2008 at 09:29
Well, who’ll be the first to start a poll?
So that we can really figure out.
(I hate it)
3 June 2008 at 10:09
There are a couple, but they all require registration to vote. I might make a WordPress poll for it
3 June 2008 at 10:25
There we go, poll added!
8 June 2008 at 03:21
[...] to use. They’re not trying to be what they’re not. But this favicon is. It’s the end of an era, [...]
8 June 2008 at 18:31
Update 3:
It seems that Google has published a small explanation of their choice. Interesting read, though it doesn’t convince me: it seems they are accepting new designs, if you have any ideas!
Thanks Wisdump for the link to that Google reaction.
19 June 2008 at 12:31
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29 June 2008 at 15:24
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29 December 2008 at 16:34
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