Google logo

The Google logo appears in numerous settings to identify the search engine company. Google has used several logos over its history, with the first logo created by Sergey Brin using GIMP. A revised logo debuted on September 1, 2015. The previous logo, with slight modifications between 1999 and 2013, was designed by Ruth Kedar, with a wordmark based on the Catull font, an old style serif typeface designed by Gustav Jaeger for the Berthold Type Foundry in 1982.

The company also includes various modifications or humorous features, such as modifications of their logo for use on holidays, birthdays of famous people, and major events, such as the Olympics. These special logos, some designed by Dennis Hwang, have become known as Google Doodles.

In 1997, Larry Page created a computerized version of the Google letters using the free graphics program GIMP. The typeface was changed and an exclamation mark was added mimicking the Yahoo! logo.

"There were a lot of different color iterations", says Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo in May 1999. "We ended up with the primary colors, but instead of having the pattern go in order, we put a secondary color on the L, which brought back the idea that Google doesn't follow the rules." The font Catull was used, "I was trying to find something that was both traditionally tied to the beautiful fonts in the past and also had a very current and in some ways surprising ways", says Ruth, "I really loved the way that it had these very elegant stems and ascenders and descenders and also had these Serifs that were very, very precise and I wanted something that when you looked at it, it was very clear that it's something you haven't seen before".

In 2010, the Google logo received its first major overhaul since May 31, 1999. The new logo was first previewed on November 8, 2009, and was officially launched on May 6, 2010, though this change was only for the main Google Search. It utilizes an identical typeface to the previous logo, but the "o" is distinctly more orange-colored in place of the previously more yellowish "o", as well as a much more subtle shadow rendered in a different shading style. This logo was just used on the main search page, while the previous logo from 1999 was still used for services and corporate branding.

On November 15, 2010, the corporate branding, Google Apps (including all its associated apps), other Google services, and country-specific versions of Google adopted a slightly brightened version of the May 2010 logo. Most noticeably, the capital 'G' and lowercase 'g' featured a brighter shade of blue. This update also applied to Gmail and the Google Sign-In pages. This logo was also used in the main search page. This change finally retired the previous logo from 1999.

On September 19, 2013, Google introduced a new "flat" (two-dimensional) logo with a slightly altered color palette. The old 2010 Google logo remained in use on some pages, such as the Google Doodles page, for a period of time. On May 24, 2014, the Google logo was slightly updated with some minor typographical tweaks, with the second 'g' moved right one pixel and the 'l' moved down and right one pixel.

On September 1, 2015, Google introduced a controversial "new logo and identity family" designed to work across multiple devices. The notable difference in the logo is the change in the typeface. The colors remained the same as with the previous logo, however, Google switched to a modern, geometric sans-serif typeface called Product Sans, created in-house at Google (which is also used for the Alphabet logo).