Logo evolution of Famous Brands (Google).

We all know Google.

The company itself has long since dominated the Internet, coming to us first as nothing but a search engine. It has since expanded into a super giant of projects, several wildly successful, many more eventually abandoned. All usually created or acquired with both good intentions and a fair bit of ingenuity and instinct.

Through their influence, we have all also come to know their logos on site. Being some of the most famous in the world, have you ever wondered the story behind them? If you are like me, the concept behind logos are often more interesting than the final products. Especially when they have become recognizable across the globe. Here is a short history of the three main Google logos.

There have been many, many Google logos over the years. They also change regularly to reflect special events, historical landmarks or humorous jokes. We have come to know these as “Google Doodles”, and they provide a great deal of entertainment when they are changed.

Who could forget the brilliant Pacman tribute that allowed us to actually play a mini game on the main search page? Or the memorable Wallace & Gromit anniversary special?

But the first ever logo was created by Sergey Brin in 1998. Originally, it was a simple creation of colored typeface with the standard colors. All with a shadow to give it more depth. The use of an exclamation point was used to mimic then-powerhouse Yahoo!

Interestingly, it was made on the free imaging editing software GIMP, showing an early preference for opensource applications that Google maintains today.

According to Ruth Kedar, who has herself designed many logos including the one currently in official use, the colors were a statement.

“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,” she explained in a 2008 interview with Wired.
The word Google came from the word googol, which means the digit 1, followed by 100 zeroes. The logo itself depicts the main purpose of Google’s birth, that is, to provide infinite number of information on any desired subject.

Time Magazine online have compiled a list of Google doodle over the time since it made its first debut in 1998.
Here's the link for the doodles over the years which has honored famous men, artists, scientist and other personalities. 

Click here for Time's List of Google Doodle

How Google Got Its Colorful Logo

Google's logo has become as recognizable as Nike's swoosh and NBC's peacock. Ruth Kedar, the graphic designer who developed the now-famous logo, shows the iterations that led to the instantly recognizable primary colors and Catull typeface that define the Google brand. Kedar met Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page through a mutual friend nine years ago at Stanford University, where she was an assistant professor. Page and Brin, who were having trouble coming up with a logo for their soon-to-launch search engine, asked Kedar to come up with some prototypes. "I had no idea at the time that Google would become as ubiquitous as it is today, or that their success would be of such magnitude," Kedar says.

TYPEFACE: ADOBE GARAMOND

Left: "It was very clear from the very beginning that they wanted to go with a logotype as opposed to just a logo," Kedar says. With this first version, Kedar wanted to keep the majority of the text untouched so the legibility was still intact, while adding some playfulness by bringing primary colors and two-dimensionality to the Os. The pattern here was used to visually imply that something goes on ad infinitum. According to Kedar, "Brin and Page liked this because it looks a bit like a Chinese finger trap."