What's with Google's new mini icon?

What's the most recognised logo in the world? It would probably be Google's if only they could stick to one. Yet as the world's most popular search engine tries out a new favicon, Craig Smith says the old branding rulebook is being rewritten.


It's not the size that matters, it's how often you use it. So the thinking goes at Google, which has just revealed the design of its latest favicon - the tiny logo that shows any web user, on any web browser, anywhere in the world, precisely whose internet "real estate" they are currently residing upon.

An example of a favicon can be seen at the top of this page (so long as you are using an up-to-date enough web browser). Just in front of the URL http://news.bbc.co.uk/... there is a small BBC logo. That 16x16 pixel square is the size of the favicon in question, if not the scope.

Now consider that, at the website owner's discretion, the logo appears on every single one of its pages that the world's web population loads. For Google that amounts to upward of 1, 200 million individual searches. Every day.

Add to that its Google News, Google Images, mobile search and multitude of other online services. Suddenly the favicon takes on an importance that belies its fingernail-sized dimensions, and the motivation for Google to roll out its third design in less than a year, as it attempts to get its favicon right, becomes clear.

Google's journey to this latest multi-coloured graphic identity charts a course through some of the unique challenges of favicon design, and through those of logo design in general. The world's leading search engine, whose very name has been adopted as the generic term for finding pages on the web, has achieved web domination without ever having had an actual logo.

Magic Eye style

Think of Google visually and you will probably picture the letters that make up the word Google, picked out in bright primary colours. In the designer's lexicon, rather than being a logo, Google has a logotype - albeit a very successful one around which it is famed for creating ever-changing topical "doodle" themes.

What Google has so far lacked is the sort of universally recognised icon that identifies a Mercedes-Benz car at distance or, in technology terms, the Apple computer or Yahoo web page - all logos that these brands use as their own favicon, not least because they fit the diminutive dimensions. The word Google, by contrast, would not reduce and still be legible.

Cue the new Google favicon - a rainbow of differently shaped blocks. A bit like one of those "hidden" Magic Eye pictures popular in the 1990s, not everyone will immediately see that the Google favicon blocks interlock to form a "g" shape.

That hardly matters. The design makes best use of favicon limitations and is a marked evolution of Google's previous iterations - a small blue "g" on a white background since June of last year, and a capital "G" before that.

While the old branding rulebook would discourage such regular, radical overhauls, reeking as it does of indecisiveness and inconsistency, in the digital world such rules are temporary, at best.

Steve Plimsoll, of brand consultancy FutureBrand, says the traditional rules on corporate identity are starting to look a little tired.

Mighty morphin logos


"Logos are set to become fluid, ever-changing, customisable, even personalised entities and Google is the first global brand that understands this," says Mr Plimsoll, who is head of digital.

"We are going to have to get used to the idea of our brands changing frequently, and when we do, every three months will seem like the dark ages."

If you don't like the new look, then, you can wait or, more proactively, send the company your own design. When Google unveiled the small 'g' last year, the company's head of search products & user experience, Marissa Mayer, hinted at a transitory solution, saying "by no means is the one you're seeing our favicon final; it was a first step to a more unified set of icons" and inviting users to contribute ideas.

The new favicon is based on a design sent in by André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil.

It may sound indecisive, even amateurish, but the fast-changing nature of Google's digital world dictates it. While the billions of pages of Google's branded "real estate" is the headline figure, its real focus is to keep pace with users' mobile phones, computer task bars and web bookmarks in such a way as to keep directing them effortlessly back to Google - using the favicon as their guide.

For the world's biggest search engine, the world's smallest signpost is one of its most valuable assets.

Google sees strong revenue growth

Google, the internet search engine, saw revenue rise and profits fall in the final quarter of last year in what have been seen as positive year-end results.

Net profit for the period was $382m (£275m), down from $1.21bn for the same period in 2007, a fall of 68%.

The results were affected by charges on investments during the quarter and were better than analysts had expected.

Total revenue was $5.7bn, up 18% compared with the same quarter the previous year.

One-off charges

Without the one-off charges on investments in Clearwire Corp and Time Warner, profits actually rose.

"Google performed well in the fourth quarter, despite an increasingly difficult economic environment," said Google boss Eric Schmidt.

"At least we have something to feel good about with this Google news in what has been shaping up to be a gloomy earnings period," said Keith Wirtz at Fifth Third Asset Management.

Earlier on Thursday, rival Microsoft posted lower profits and announced up to 5,000 redundancies.

Microsoft to cut up to 5,000 jobs

Microsoft has said it will cut up to 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months, including 1,400 immediately.

The firm also reported a net profit of $4.17bn (£3bn) for the three months to 31 December, down 11% on last year and less than analysts' expectations.

Microsoft added it was "no longer able" to give a profit and revenue outlook for the fiscal year amid current volatile market conditions.

Shares in Microsoft fell 7.9%, dragging Wall Street lower.


Cost cuts

"While we're not immune to the effects of the economy, I am confident in the strength of our product portfolio and soundness of our approach," said Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

Richard Williams, an analyst at Cross Research, said: "Microsoft has never had a layoff like this in my knowledge, and it's sending a signal that the times are definitely changing."

Microsoft said the announced job cuts would take place in research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources and information technology.

It added it would also be making other cost-cutting measures, including a reduction in spending on travel.

"These initiatives will reduce the company's annual operating expense run rate by approximately $1.5bn and reduce fiscal year 2009 capital expenditures by $700m," Microsoft said.

Click essentials: Web browsers

There are several web browsers available, and they are all much more than just an address bar and a back button.
The five browsers we're going to look at are: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Chrome. Pretty much everyone uses one of these beasts.

Some of the stuff coming up is only available in the latest versions, so try and download those if you can.

If you're serious about browsing lots of pages at once, the first thing you need to get a handle on is tabs. If you want to keep your eye on several different websites, you may be tempted to open several instances of your browser. Instead, you can open a new tab in the same browser, keeping your taskbar nice a free from clutter.

And once you've got loads of pages open, you can keep tabs on your tabs by tiling them at the touch of a key - Hit CTRL Q on IE7.

Opera allows you to speed-dial up to nine of your favourite websites when you open a new tab, while Chrome will give you a one-click choice of sites you've visited most often.

If you need to stay bang up to date with the latest news, you'll find many websites now provide live-feeds - called RSS feeds - of their headlines. You can use your browser to keep an eye on these without having to go back to the site in question.

The sites that provide RSS feeds should have a symbol somewhere about the place. Clicking 'subscribe' should automatically add the feed to your browser's list.

Zooming in is great if you're finding a web page difficult to read, and zooming out is especially useful if you're using a mobile or small device. You can get an idea of the whole layout, before finding and reading the part you want. Opera is particularly good at reorganising the content after zooming to make the layout more friendly to your screen size.

Some browsers pride themselves on their flexibility and customisability. Firefox fans are especially lucky here. There are thousands of plug-ins and extensions that change the look and feel, and allow the browser to do extra things.

Each browser does its thing in a slightly different way, and each has its own devoted fans - what you do with yours, is up to you.


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