Should logos focus more on branding or usability?
To be honest, when I first saw the new Google logos, I didn’t think too much about them, until I actually clicked on my google drive and had to take a double take, as I was trying to find the Gmail logo. The process of scanning your google drive apps shouldn’t take more than a second at most, but it ended up being a few seconds at least, because they all look the same! These rainbow blobs are hard to differentiate because of their lack of color distinctions, they more or less end up looking like the same thing.
While scrolling through LinkedIn, I found a post about Google’s new logo’s by David Pasztor that reads,
This caption was used with the picture you see above, and it really sheds some light on the topic of designing logos for branding purposes vs. usability. Lets go through why the usability of a product should always be the focal point of a product.
Branding vs. Usability
We all know that the branding of a product is important, but branding should never undermine a products usability. Alone, a rainbow logo (like the Instagram logo) is a pretty sweet logo. It works great as a stand-alone logo for the app and the gradient has been a staple in Instagram’s entire brand for a while now. Brands now have been transforming their logos more and more towards the rainbow/colorful design. (Some examples are in the picture below). In cases like Instagram, I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing and I do like it. But, in Google’s case these app logos all work in conjunction with each other. On the same page when you’re trying to pick out one icon out of a few others that look similar, the rainbow color palette doesn’t exactly work in it’s favor.
Although I don’t hate it, the idea of logos for apps going in the rainbow palette makes my head hurt a bit. When I look at how many colorful app logos there are below it just makes me think that it’s a bit too much and overdone, not to mention looking at a bright logo all day can cause mental fatigue.
The use of white space and just the general shape of the logos are also worth mentioning. Almost all of them have white space or a white hole in the middle making them even more indistinguishable and more similar. When you compare the new logo apps to the old one’s you see that the only old logo that utilizes this white space in the center is the old google drive logo. In comparison, 4/5 new logo’s have the white center feature, resulting in them looking almost identical. This is especially the case in the last three logo’s on the right.
Diversity vs. Unity
Besides all of this, I think the biggest problem with Google’s new logo’s is that they prioritized unity over diversity. This at face value isn’t bad because while you’re creating new logos, you obviously want them to look like they belong together, but when you push too much unity you lack the ability to distinguish and delight the user. The old logos showcased that idea of diversity while still keeping the Google brand as well as being able to delight the user with slightly different logos in the Google space.
All in all, it’s not the worst, but in the case of logo design, usability should always be the focal point, not branding.
This article was written in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Fall 2020 section of DMD 3035 — Interaction Design at the University of Connecticut, Digital Media & Design Department
