Blog Assignment #6

Google has become one of the largest businesses in the world. Google began in 1996 with Larry Page and Sergey Brin developing it as a research project for their PhD at Standford. Google first produced an image, the one above, when Yahoo! was the prominent search engine on the internet. The original logo was designed using a program called GIMP, which was a free graphics program to create computerized lettering. The exclamation point was used to mock the Yahoo! logo, but they ended up going with a logo without it.

Sergey Brin explains it best:

Google 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.

Google ended up using the same logo for 10 years until recently changing it to look more “modern” to the average searcher. The new logo was first tested in November 2009, but was officially launched in May 2010. According to Google, it follows an identical font to the previous logo, yet features a distantly-colored “o” in place of the previous yellowish one, as well as more subtle shadowing of the letters.

Google has become an iconic image over the years because of its simplicity, but has been criticized for its stand on spam. Though Google strongly believes in spam and identity protection, it’s ironic how Google’s Gmail platform is one of the most spammed email clients on the internet. The image to the left is a perfect example of Google’s attempt to protect against spam because instead of blocking actual spam emails Gmail has decided to add its own network to the spam folder. Is Google trying to block itself? I highly doubt it, but it just shows that no matter how much they talk about protecting the average user they must first make sure they’re protecting their brand. Obviously technology encounters many bugs in the programming, but the least Google can do is make sure people see emails from their own network.