Google Favicon Rant

I've not written here for ages. Over 1 1/2 years in fact.. my my, doesn't time fly. I realized I'd had a gmail account for over three years the other day (my first email is from 19/02/2005).

I first found the internet fairly late. Was around 1999 or 2000. I'd read about it in magazines, but even with the rich populas in Windsor, I only new one person who had it at home (and damnit, his parents were minted!). Getting internet at school led to my downfall (in schooling anyway - I've learnt a lot more online than I would have had I stayed at school and onwards), but it wasn't until 2001 when we got our first internet cafe's in Windsor (a music store with 4 iMacs charging £1 for 20 minutes).

Getting off my point anyway. Like many other people, my internet aging grew with Google. It was thanks to Yahoo! mostly - I had my mail with them at the time, and used their search. I spent about a year using a 486 with (what was then) high-speed broadband. Could download Yahoo!'s page just fine, but computing it with whatever browser I was using was a grind. So I switched to Google, and stayed ever since.

As many other people have noticed, Google recently changed their favicon. Finally, Google have explained why:

Last Friday, Google changed their favicon and it caused a big stir amongst Google users. We asked Google why they made the change and they replied that it was to reflect the "simple, playful and unique brand."

Here is the official response from a Google spokesperson:

We recognized there was a need for a Google icon that would better work across multiple applications including web, mobile and client applications. We felt the small 'g' had many of the characteristics that best represent our brand: it's simple, playful, and unique. We will be looking to improve and enhance this icon as we move forward.

First of all, the colours are wrong. After a couple of hours browsing, I can easily up 30 or more tabs open. The red/green/blue/white white square of the old Big G were always easy to spot. Now I have to read the title of each tab. Though a different shade, a single blue colour I have come to mentally link with Facebook.

Secondly, it's lower case. Google is one of the biggest (if not the title holder) internet companies in the world. It's a big G! One of the comments I read in another blog referenced a study where capital letters suggested pomposity. Maybe this is true, but there's no point changing now, which brings me to my third point:

The Google favicon we've been used to for the last god-knows-how-many-years means Google. If another site used it, we'd notice it as Google. What with internet security the way it is nowadays, any symbol or logo of a company we trust is an important thing. Casual users might not notice it right away, but I've had a couple of less experienced computer user ring me thinking their computers were hacked. Why? Because that little Google logo wasn't the same. This should have been part of a much larger brand change, or at least a prominent announcement made. In the long run, this may be better for the Google brand, but in the short run, it seems like a not well thought out idea.