
Go's New Brand - andybons
https://blog.golang.org/go-brand
======
zokier
This makes me incredibly (to me) sad. The identity is so completely soulless,
and the logo is the opposite of timeless, trying to grasp currently oh so hip
and pop retro aesthetic. Nevermind that the retro logo and super sleek modern
visual identity seems to clash with each other, _both_ are abandoning the
playfulness that was so prevalent before, most clearly evident in the various
Go gopher illustrations.

And its not that the designs here are bad in isolation; overall the visual
identity is very sleek, and I could imagine it working well for something
else; RedHat and JetBrains are the first things that come to mind. But for Go,
this logo is the one that I acknowledge:

[https://blog.golang.org/gopher/logo.png](https://blog.golang.org/gopher/logo.png)

Funny thing here is that I'm don't even like Go that much, and still I had
such strong negative reaction to this branding.

~~~
juliangoldsmith
I'd agree here. It's like they tried to make the new branding as generic as
they possibly could.

I liked the simple, basic site that Go has always used. It seems inevitable
that they'll redo the site, to include megabytes of JavaScript for features
that nobody wants, like hijacked scrolling. (The site[0] for the design agency
they talk about loads about 3 MB. Almost none of it is images. The site loads
all that to display approximately ten words.)

Also,

>The circular shape of the letters hints at the eyes of the Go gopher,
creating a familiar shape and allowing the mark and the mascot to pair well
together.

If by "pairing well together", you mean not going together in any way, then
yes.

[0]: [http://within.us/](http://within.us/)

~~~
FridgeSeal
Jesus christ that site is bad.

It's like they tried to tick every box in the "obnoxious and annoying"
category:

* It's inexplicably large

* It's slow af

* Scroll hijacking

* back button hijacking

* There's elements that appear when I scroll, but they disappear so you don't actually appear to be able to look them any more than in passing. (Notably the colourful logos for Google and Priceline).

* Did I mention it's slow? Scrolling is slow. Clicking on things is slow. Animations are slow.

* ~Half the code isn't even minified and a coworker pointed out that some of it doesn't appear to even be used.~ Nevermind, some of it does appear to be minified/resized.

* 3.8+ Megabytes of JS, really? Really really? Why?

~~~
fermienrico
I am so utterly infuriated at their incompetence. How could they not see these
obvious points? I hope they're reading because they ruined the face of an
otherwise, very cool programming language project in our times.

------
wiremine
Caveat: I'm a software developer who's worked in agencies for half of my 20
year career. A few thoughts:

1\. Branding is hard: everybody things they can do it. Creative direction and
art direction are really, really hard. If you haven't seen the "Make my logo
bigger cream" video, go watch it, and then have some grace with the Go team.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgcX0y1Nzhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgcX0y1Nzhs)

2\. A brand is WAY more than a logo. I get that's the first thing you grab,
but the logo is just the identify of the brand. If you think it's all creative
mumbo jumbo, I encourage you to go read Aaker's "Building Strong Brands"
[https://www.amazon.com/Building-Strong-Brands-David-
Aaker/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Building-Strong-Brands-David-
Aaker/dp/002900151X)

Go read the Brand Guide twice before you start throwing darts.
[https://storage.googleapis.com/golang-assets/go-brand-
book-v...](https://storage.googleapis.com/golang-assets/go-brand-
book-v1.0.pdf)

Having seen 100s of these over the years, this is excellent work from people
who honestly care. It also addresses almost every single negative comment on
this thread.

I also like how they call out explicitely "The gopher is not a logo" which is
entirely true. I think it's more of a "lovemark" (see
[https://www.amazon.com/Lovemarks-Kevin-
Roberts/dp/157687270X](https://www.amazon.com/Lovemarks-Kevin-
Roberts/dp/157687270X))

It's not my favorite logo, but it's definitely on brand.

If the go team is reading this: it might help if you lead with the mark and
the mascot together. I think the logo in isolation is what's generating the
strong reaction.

~~~
stonogo
Apologies, but I disagree with basically everything you're saying here.

Branding isn't hard; forcing a constructed brand is hard. That's the real
source of friction here.

A brand might be way more than a logo, but THIS brand is not. That logo is
literally the only thing this design agency contributed at all. Even the
colors were already in use around the project. If the difference between "a
brand" and "a logo" is "ten pages of marketspeak" then I'm even less convinced
that branding is hard.

I read the "brand guide." It's exactly what I expect from a professional
design firm: meaningless noise, carefully typeset. The entirety of section 1
is a PR quickref chart, of no interest or use to anyone but project managers
dealing with micromanaging executives. Section 2.0 is breathless pseudo-art
crap and some trademark defense. 2.1 contains pointless backstory for fonts
that are firmly in the "Google already had lying around" category. Finally,
the cartoon gets its own section, expressly to head off the whining from the
old guard.

I've also seen a ton of this crap over the years, and none of it has ever made
the slightest bit of difference. This is exactly the kind of time-and-money-
wasting that occurs when some facet of management has gone off the rails.
Let's hope the derelict in question is somewhere in marketing, and unable to
affect the quality of the actual technology in question.

As for the actual logo, I don't have an opinion about it. I don't think
there's anything there to have an opinion about. I've never been a big fan of
the gopher cartoon, but at least it had some character, which likely comes
from the talent of a real artist.

~~~
wiremine
> Branding isn't hard; forcing a constructed brand is hard. That's the real
> source of friction here.

Let's agree to disagree. I've been involved in dozens of branding processes.
None of them were easy, from the strategy to the creative to the execution.

If the agency did their job, the brand guide _should_ feel obvious. That's how
you know it's on brand.

<rant>I find this sort of comment very condescending to designers. I'n not a
designer, but I've managed them. Good design is hard. Good creative is hard.
Good branding is hard. This was excellent work, and if you see "marketspeak"
you need to re-evaluate what good creative work looks like.</rant>

~~~
marcus_holmes
Marketspeak is marketspeak because it lacks honesty and authenticity.

It's like "artist's statements" that are written so impenetrably that it's
impossible for anyone to understand what the artist actually meant to do with
the artwork. And that's deliberate, because of where the art world has got
now.

If the designers of this shitshow were honest in their statement then it'd be
"we made it look like this because it was the easiest and simplest method of
getting it past the mass of middle-managers who got to veto the creative
without contributing any positive ideas themselves. The brief was to be as
inoffensive and non-controversial as possible".

As another commenter said, Go is brutalist. The gopher never quite suited it.
But at least it was fun and original and different. But this... this is shite.

------
Bjorkbat
Eh, I'm really not feeling this. I mean, I just really loved that silly little
cartoon gopher and his goofy little eyes. It had a personality.

This is something that really irritates me about Google and their products,
services, "stuff" if you will. Their branding is contemporary but at the same
time has absolutely no excitement or personality to it. I mean, it's till
contemporary, it still uses interesting colors and stuff, but they strip away
all personality from everything that they do in the interest of appealing to a
worldwide audience.

Whatever, joke's on them, I'm going to vehemently deny that this new brand
exists. I'm not going to let a branding agency ruin things for me.

~~~
EnderMB
To be fair, the gopher does appear on their branding in place, just not where
the blog post has shown.

The agency page for their work on Go features an updated gopher graphic, and I
think the home page looks quite nice. The branding booklet looks like standard
agency stuff, but if they were to use the gopher a bit more I could get behind
it.

[http://within.us/google-go/](http://within.us/google-go/)

------
ben509
_The circular shape of the letters hints at the eyes of the Go gopher,
creating a familiar shape_

I found it agreeable, woody, complex and balanced, with notes of ash and
clover.

~~~
52-6F-62
Is that a bit of peach on the finish? And maybe some citrus?

------
indescions_2018
Can't resist a good design critique so here goes. My take echoes many of the
gut first impressions expressed by others.

Presumably the Go design team added the speed lines at the left to connote
speed, performance, and and the future progress and adoption of the language.
But the way the lines are conceived is generic. The variation of lengths,
meant to evoke the chaotic air turbulence behind a rapidly accelerating race
car, is tired. Nothing we haven't seen millions of times before. And not
particularly well thought out. In direct contradiction to the expressive power
and beauty of the language itself.

The best thing about the design is of course the hidden encapsulation of the
mathematical symbol for "infinity". Although, again I find myself at a loss to
understand the exact nature of the relation. A possible reference to the
ability to spawn millions of goroutines?

The execution of the infinity symbol itself is muddled by the sharp corners of
the G's aperture. Shouldn't it be more rounded? It's menacing resemblance to a
PC-era on/off power symbol rotated 90 degrees counter-clockwise is
distracting.

And lastly, the most troubling of all. Whither the beloved Gopher? A clear nod
to the linux penguin. And a secret totem to those who have been initiated. A
hieroglyph for the high priests. No text necessary.

Make no doubt about what this rebranding portends. Enterprise Go, Team Edition
coming soon ;)

~~~
tyrankh
> A clear nod to the linux penguin. And a secret totem to those who have been
> initiated. A hieroglyph for the high priests. No text necessary.

That's... looking into it quite a lot, isn't it? It seems like just a playful
mascot.

~~~
tomjakubowski
Yeah, if anything it's a nod to Plan 9's Glenda the bunny -- they're by the
same artist, even!

------
shirro
Looks like a courier company. Very bland and corporate looking which I guess
is the focus of Go as a language. It am a mediocre programmer so I really like
Go, it is my main language, but it is an uninspiring language by design.

This logo looks aimed at suits and not the Go community. That might not be a
bad thing for Go jobs and for Google. Open source communities often have puns
in naming or plushy worthy logos and just generally playfulness which I don't
see in this logo.

~~~
pwaivers
Reminds me of the playful acronym for PHP, which is "PHP: Hypertext
Preprocessor".

------
jxub
The rebranding might make the language look sleeker and more enterprisey but
it looks that they're rejecting their spirit of playfulness in order to appeal
to the likes of Oracle clients and take away more Java mindshare.

~~~
woolvalley
TBH I've always thought of Go as Google's Java. With some decisions to make
developing at super-big-co even nicer, which helps you at google scale.

~~~
amelius
I always thought of Go as Google's Erlang.

~~~
jupp0r
I think this gets too many downvotes. Yes, static vs dynamic typing. Yes,
imperative vs functional language. On the other hand, CSP is conceptually
fairly close to the Actor Model, so there are definitely similarities. I've
written go code that looks similar to Erlang (a go routine receiving messages
from an `interface{}` channel in a for loop and then dispatching based on the
type.

~~~
zzzcpan
Conceptually they are worlds apart. Supervision trees are even impossible in
idiomatic Go.

~~~
jupp0r
Supervision trees have nothing to do with Actors or CSP. I can recommend
reading the original papers.

Golang not well supporting supervision trees has more to do with the runtime
not allowing to kill a goroutine. See
[http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2930](http://www.jerf.org/iri/post/2930)

------
keyle
Highly disappointing. They took the soul out of it, the gopher is not even
included as part of the logo, like a wink in history. The Gopher IS GO! Its
scruffy looks, small and mighty made it approachable and fun.

This looks like they hired an external team of wan#&$%, pardon the term, but
humour me for a second: the brand guide pdf:

\- ven diagram, check

\- big wanky words, check

\- big wanky opposite words, check

\- proxy terms that are samey to any brand they'd do, check

This could have been delivered on April 1st.

~~~
stirner
I checked the date to make sure this wasn't an old April Fools' joke. The new
design language is minimalistic, but it's not simple, and doesn't reflect the
programming language at all.

------
ysleepy
Looks awfully like design by committee, lowest common denominator taste. There
is zero distinctiveness and character.

Even java kept coffee cup and duke.

~~~
zzzcpan
Doesn't look like design by committee to me, just shows lack of experience.

------
VohuMana
Sleek new logo makes it look like a bicycle renting start up. While I think
its good to refresh branding and aim to unify more things, I will miss the Go
Gopher.

~~~
electricslpnsld
Renee French, the original illustrator of the Go Gopher, is still updating the
gopher: [http://reneefrench.blogspot.com](http://reneefrench.blogspot.com)

I'm partial to this take on the little fella:
[http://reneefrench.blogspot.com/2016/11/blog-
post.html](http://reneefrench.blogspot.com/2016/11/blog-post.html)

~~~
crispinb
Creepy (the fuzzy gopher-dalek, not you)

------
hazeii
Perhaps this won't be a popular sentiment, but since when did programming
languages need brand identity?

~~~
cup-of-tea
One of the reasons I really like Python is it never had any of this crap. It's
popular just because it's useful and people like it.

~~~
matthberg
I think that though Python is popular independent of its branding, it
definitely has a strong branding system, just less explicitly stated as go's.
Their font is quite iconic, and their logo and colors more so:
[https://www.python.org/community/logos/](https://www.python.org/community/logos/)

~~~
carapace
That all happened waaaay later.

~~~
candiodari
Plus when it comes to moustaches, Python's is ... well ... "better than Cobol"
seems an apt description.

------
zapita
_" Rest easy, our beloved Gopher Mascot remains at the center of our brand"_

Then why is the mascot not featured in the post even once?

------
danielvf
Looks like they are loosing the bespoke Go fonts ([https://blog.golang.org/go-
fonts](https://blog.golang.org/go-fonts)) and going with Work Sans and Roboto.
I understand the reasoning.

Personally, I have a big soft spot in my heart for the go fonts . Whenever I
feel like coding like it's 1979 again, I load them up in my editor and pretend
I'm looking at well written documentation from my childhood.

[edit: Yay, Go fonts remain for source code display!]

~~~
shurcooL
Just checking, but did you see page 19?

~~~
danielvf
Heh. I stopped at page 18 of the new styleguide at the body font section . So
the Go font remains the official font for the display of source code. Yay!!

------
shiado
I know it is petty and irrational but I judge the quality of a software
project by how boring it looks, where boringness is better. The more it looks
like some university professor's web 0.1 hand-coded HTML project circa 1993
the better. Just look at this sexy boring website, it tells you that things
are going to work perfectly with no bullshit or corporate-speak included.
[https://gcc.gnu.org/](https://gcc.gnu.org/)

~~~
rainbowmverse
Compare to clang's website, which has the same aesthetic and is half as busy
(visually): [https://clang.llvm.org/](https://clang.llvm.org/)

~~~
iaabtpbtpnn
The logo for LLVM is a big silver dragon

------
Isamu
They kept the gopher. But they provide a model sheet.

"The gopher is not a logo. However, when appropriate, it can and should be
used on communications that are Go branded, but should not be used in place of
our logo, nor should it be placed too closely around the logo, so as to infer
it's an alternate logo."

Hey, they linked to a talk by Renee French about her design of the gopher:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rw_B4yY69k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rw_B4yY69k)

~~~
kps
> “… nor should [the gopher] be placed too closely around the logo, so as to
> infer it's an alternate logo.”

I doubt the gopher is either clever enough or interested enough to infer that.

------
sudhirj
It's really sad and insulting to the language itself to do this - while
there's nothing wrong with the design assets and guidelines, this looks like
it was a template bought for $29.99 off a design website.

The problem is that the design has no connection or correlation at all with
what the design is for. The difference is superbly obvious in the slide
masters - look at the code samples - that code looks like it has absolutely no
place on a slide like that.

That's true of the entire design language - it's great for a startup trying to
be cool, but has nothing to do with Go. It's like what we'd get if we asked
one of our designer interns to come with a brand language and the only brief
they were given is "It's called Go, and this mascot is non-negotiable".

------
thanatos_dem
I know folks love the gopher, but I’m a fan of this to be honest.

The hand drawn gopher just looked... childish? It definitely didn’t give me
the impression of an efficient and well put together programming language.

~~~
bitwize
The Go gopher is a redraw of Glenda, the Plan 9 bunny. Many of Plan 9's
principals worked on Go, which is itself an update of Alef, Plan 9's planned
systems language, before it was canned and replaced with C.

I'm sure he'll still be around as a mascot. He's still on the site's main
page. I really don't see the problem with him -- most commercial internet
servers run a kernel with a cute penguin mascot, and many of the rest run a
kernel with a cute mascot who is _literally the Devil_ \-- but I can
appreciate the strategy of opening with a punchy, barebones logotype.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Was it really a redraw of the Plan 9 bunny? According to the Go website it
says the gopher was created for a radio station fund raiser.

 _About 15 years ago—long before the Go project—the gopher first appeared as a
promotion for the WFMU radio station in New Jersey. Renee French was
commissioned to design a T-shirt for an annual fundraiser and out came the
gopher._

~~~
bitwize
Guess who also designed Glenda.

~~~
bitmapbrother
French, of course. The Gopher, however, is not a "redraw" of the rabbit.

------
newscracker
Logo design and acceptance (by the ones commissioning it) is a strange thing,
in my experience. This new logo looks like a gas/fuel station logo or a racing
logo. I can't imagine it being dissociated with these categories. The older
gopher one, though kinda whimsical, was nicer, cuter and amenable to be
modified to indicate different things in different contexts. This new logo is
static and is the opposite of the old one in many ways.

New logo designs, of things that have been around for sometime, invite
derision and ridicule (and for good measure). Getting used to such decisions
will take time.

~~~
PinkMilkshake
Ha! Gas station was the first thing that came to my mind, then car rental
company.

------
rcdmd
The "Go logo" has always been something like "-=GO"[1]. There's not much
changing here, unless the announcement signals that they're going to start de-
emphasizing the acquired-taste gopher.

[1] See the black/white image halfway down the page--
[https://blog.golang.org/gopher](https://blog.golang.org/gopher)

~~~
im_dario
Spot on. It seems to me that everybody missed the point. The gopher won't go
away (it appears in the official guide) but this new brand is just a modern
evolution of the official logo which was eclipsed by the gopher.

------
jaytaylor
Gopher got demoted to page 22? What a sad day to be a gopher.

------
gehwartzen
I may be in the rare (for this site) situation of never having heard of of GO
(I'm not a programmer) when I clicked the link and my first impression was
that this was rebranding for some food delivery service.

~~~
prawn
I thought "courier" immediately. I think it's clean and effective, but I don't
have any interest/care for the language and don't recall ever having seen its
gopher or whatever represented it before. I can appreciate that those who have
would have a stronger and different reaction.

------
wscott
I immediately thought of the book Go, Dog Go!
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go,_Dog._Go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go,_Dog._Go)!

The old gopher wasn't serious either, but at least it was fun.

------
tomc1985
Why...the...fuck.... does a programming language need a branding team?????

~~~
andrewmcwatters
To sell you shit, and sell you the appeal of using the language.

------
mortdeus
why fix whats not broken? I like the plan 9/unix/KISS style? Like who
seriously sat there and was like, this is something we need help with and was
like we need outside help with this.

The brand book is astonishingly horrible and is not an improvement on the way
we are digesting the information.

------
rn2dy2018
1\. Go already has a brand and logo recognized by everyone. 2\. Go is a
programming language, not a brand, I as a developer don't really care what the
brand look like. So, to the community and the GO team: please don't make this
a big deal!

------
jasonkostempski
"Our logo follows the brand’s core philosophy of simplicity over complexity."

The logo and the philosophy behind it are the first things anyone,
professional designer or not, would think of. If Go's philosophy was to
implement the first thing that comes to mind, it would have generics by now :)
I think they need to put a little more thought into this.

Edit: Maybe the design could could incorporate a visual representation of
goroutines in some way?

------
philip1209
A few more details on the design agency's site:

[http://within.us/google-go/](http://within.us/google-go/)

~~~
cschmidt
The phone mockup is weird. Can you even install Go on a phone?

~~~
bitmapbrother
You can certainly create Go based mobile applications on iOS and Android.

------
kenhwang
Well this certainly looks very corporate and professional now. I suppose that
fits their targeted audience better.

~~~
philip1209
It also makes developers vouching for Go seem more credible.

~~~
leshow
Do we really have to suck the fun out of everything in order to look
'credible'?

~~~
kenhwang
Fun was probably getting in Go's way in becoming the next Java.

~~~
leshow
IMO Go is in Go's way if becoming the next Java.

------
TurboHaskal
Yikes. What's next, using syntax highlighting on presentations?

------
darren0
This is really the wrong move. Really sucks the personality out of go. I felt
the old brand clearly highlighted the important thing is, and where the most
time is spent, is the code

------
tentakull
This is interesting to me. I have more than a peripheral interest in art and
design, but my day job is heavy systems programming using Go/Scala and the
like. I think there is a huge market advantage to correctly branding stuff
developers use. For me this is, excuse the hyperbole, almost objectively a
terrible rebranding of Go. The Gopher, while not currently wholely
representative of what Go has become...is iconic and a lovely homage to the
playfulness and irreverency of hacker culture. What an opportunity to update
and infuse the brand with how the language has developed. I love what other
people are doing with the gopher (like the the dep packager).

On top of this, I can't get over the fact that the design team can't draw.
What? How much are you guys getting paid?

------
wyas
Looks like the logo for a stop-n-shop-style grocery store.

------
pier25
It's ugly. Looks like a brand of sport shoes for 12 year olds.

I think the brand for a programming language like Go should not look like a
toy.

~~~
arnvald
That was exactly my first thought. Just add 2 more letters and you have
"GOAL", a new brand of soccer equipment for children.

------
baby
Wow. This is bad. It looks like a tire or automotive company logo for some
reason. It seems like someone with no real design intuition was in charge of
picking the final logo.

Why not make several ones and ask the community for their favorite one?

------
4ad
Imagine how many external contributors could have been sponsored to work on Go
for the money Google blew on this project.

~~~
UncleEntity
How much does it cost to "refine" the Speed Racer logo?

~~~
4ad
Way more than you think. And now that I told you that, 10-50x more than you
revised estimation.

------
jatins
There's only one purpose of good brand identity and that's to be remembered. I
don't see how this is more memorable than the beloved Gopher.

Edit: Gopher is still the official mascot, though. So that's good.

------
robbyt
Looks like they had the interns design this during their down time. Really
forgettable, and uninspired.

------
hawski
The Gopher took a nice cozy corporate job and is sitting now in a cubicle. He
wears a suit and a tie instead of Hawaiian shirt. It's a serious business now.

------
jweir
This won't make the language any better.

It will make the language more approachable for new comers.

The Go website is _almost_ as bare bones as it gets. It functions fine and we
are familiar with it.

But compared to say Python, the site looks pretty amateur. If you were to
judge a language by its website, I'd say Python looks better.

The new branding can lead the way to a more put together presentation, and
that could be good for the growth of the community.

~~~
bitmapbrother
The logo is just the start. The website will also be refreshed.

 _The website will be getting a refresh based on the new design. Since we are
making significant changes, we are also taking this opportunity to update our
website infrastructure to support internationalization and multilingual to
better serve our global community. The migration will happen in stages over
the next few months starting with this blog._

~~~
everybodyknows
Go's online documentation is the best I've ever seen for a language. You can
still hear Rob Pike's diction in the core functionality sections -- precise as
a scalpel.

Now a "design agency" has their claws into it. My own feelings are nausea, and
fear.

------
omarforgotpwd
Whatever. Everyone hates new designs at first and then we get used to them. Go
is cool and I think it could be a good thing that they're putting some work
into making it look cool. It's good to have an awareness of your programming
language among non-technical people and use branding to communicate qualities
they can't pick up by actually using the language.

~~~
zokier
> they're putting some work into making it look cool

They might be _trying_ to make it look cool, but what they have accomplished
is to make it look corporate, which is pretty much diametrically opposite of
cool.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
If you're going to pick a language based on what's "cool", you might not be
golang's target user base anyway...

~~~
zokier
GP comments choice of words, not mine

------
sremani
I am not a branding expert, and that's a good thing, because it took a full 5
minutes to really figure out what the heck they are doing here. They wanted
something "Simple & Speed" to be associated with Go which are certainly
attributes of Go I have read about.

------
mrmondo
While I don't really 'care' about the logo of a programming language per se,
this makes 'GO' look like a courier / delivery company to me, it also seems a
little odd that both letters are the same case.

------
JustSomeNobody
For some reason it instantly made me think of the cover of "Go,dog. Go!".

------
superrad
It looks really bland and unremarkable now. Maybe just a little bit
understated.

------
beeks10
I am going to miss the gopher :(

Go's branding will always be the gopher in my eyes.

------
ArchieT
One thing about this new branding is that I have _never_ ever seen Go spelled
with all caps (GO). Most only see it as either "Go" or "go". Spelling it with
all caps ("GO") makes it look like a single shapeless typographic slab. "Go"
is found in text, and "go" is found in code, cmd and everything related.

In the original the letters were thinner, and that could have made it feel
more lightweight, so it wasn't that bad.

------
oseph
This is so much better than that silly cartoon they had before. Sure it was
cute and fun, but for a modern language it felt so ... childish. As someone
who works professionally as an illustrator and dabbles with code, this is just
my two cents, and whether you like or dislike a logo is 100% entirely
subjective. This new logo/identity feels much more refreshing and importantly,
professional. At least in my books.

Next up, Java's atrocious coffee cup logo perhaps?

------
smnplk
Does not compute. Go is speed now and Rust is just, well rust ?

~~~
slezyr
It's faster write programs in Go. But programs in Rust run faster.

------
spludge
The gopher was never the logo. From the brand book: > "The gopher is not a
logo"

The gopher stays on as go's mascot. The brand book even has a page on how to
draw it!

------
infonull
Bland and forgettable.

The gopher mascot was embraced by the community. It's a programming
language... the need for a "corporate brand treatment" should be mocked.

------
miguelmota
At first glance I disliked it, but after a second look at it I think it's
quite nice. It's bold, clean, and simple. People are generally resistant to
change but it's something they'll become accustomed to fairly quick. Glad to
know they kept the little guy gopher mascot.

------
thefounder
I like the old brand better...
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Golang.p...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/Golang.png)

------
jehlakj
Reminds me of a logo that was on a tv remote controller I used to have. Do
they seriously think it’s witty to most people? All I see is a two letter word
without any context or deeper implications. Okay, maybe the word is moving
right. But that’s it.

------
adjagu
Reminds me of the logo for GQ India.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/GQ_India_logo...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/74/GQ_India_logo.png)

------
sarabande
\- Who is responsible for such rebrandings? Does the Google marketing team
decide one day that the Go language needs a new identity, or was this a
request by the language designers?

\- Does a rebranding need approval from the language designers?

------
deltron3030
I don't like the big thin typeface in those materials, too snobby. The logo
itself is OK, they should have used a bold font like that, and maybe just use
the outlines to represent the lightweightness visually.

------
aaronang
It looks like the Gopher mascot will still be on the (possible) new frontpage
[http://within.us/google-go/](http://within.us/google-go/).

------
smnplk
Is Go a programing language that lands you a job the fastest these days ?

------
gamw_mana_sou
Judging from the palette, it looks to me that they're getting the language
prepared for Android or more possibly Fuchsia.

I'm eager to see how they're going to replace Java little-by-little.

------
shurcooL
I was very happy to see the Go font was a part of this (page 19).

------
kentt
I'm so glad I don't have to sit through design presentations anymore. Just
reading the first few words of the "Brand Book" made me die inside.

------
sargas
This new logo looks sterile and boring, creativity-wise. It isn't clever
neither. I'm excited for the official website redesign, however. It needs it.

------
pjmlp
Man, even I prefer that cute little gopher to this new branding.

Better spend money improving the real issues of the language, instead of
paying to agencies for this outcome.

------
lambda021
Gopher is a fork of Go, but keeps the cute Gopher logo FOREVER. ;)

LONG LIVE GOPHER!

Our homepage: [http://gopher.gg](http://gopher.gg)

~~~
auxten
that's cool! apply for gopher maintainer

------
gumpyoung
The "new" logo looks even worse than TNT or UPS... Should we start a petition
on Change.org to stop this happening??

------
jasonmoo
It looks like a ride-sharing service logo.

------
PinkMilkshake
I guess ya'll should just switch to erlang then with it's negative space
internet explorer logo.

------
0x4f3759df
Since it looks like an infinity symbol, so the little speed burst at the left
is not working for me.

------
deevolution
The gopher was what initally caught my attention. Cant believe they did away
of that little dude.

------
auxten
[http://gopher.gg/](http://gopher.gg/)

------
mpfundstein
this is so stupid ... a freaking brand book for a programming language. god
damn :-) can we get more hipster?

on the other hand, its also fun. maybe i should just complain less and enjoy
the beautiful colors :D

------
KAdot
Go™ Enterprise Edition.

------
fnwx17
the logo is pretty forgettable, but on the bright side - at page 24 of the PDF
they announced that Go 2.0 will have generics

------
tripa
I love how the favicon's still a gopher.

~~~
sus_007
Not for long I think, they probably will redesign their entire site too.

------
kalleboo
Perhaps this new brand was just a psychological experiment to see how easy it
is to bait Hacker News into a 200+ comment thread on bikeshedding?

~~~
cerberusss
I see you're being downvoted but this whole topic indeed is just that,
bikeshedding.

------
misrab
Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!

gophers 4eva, I refuse the new logo.

------
holografix
#NotMyLogo

------
hajderr
So you're a racing company?

------
21
Reading the comments here makes it clear why most programmers should stay away
from design.

I've programmed for 20 years now, but that stupid gopher and the way it was
everywhere was a serious put off for me on giving Go a look. Nerdy AF.

Good riddance.

I wonder if there was a huge internal battle between the brand savvy people
which realized how terrible the gopher was, and the Go creators.

Guys, don't be so stereotypical, expand your horizon outside of Pokemon and
Star Wars esthetics. I'll put it in a more obvious form: a lot of you like
Apple, can you imagine for a second that gopher on anything Apple?

Downvotes away...

~~~
zokier
You realize that the gopher (and glenda before it) was created by professional
illustrator and not programmers?

~~~
013a
That is true, but its also worth pointing out a bit of context: the gopher was
created by Rob Pike's, one of the creators', wife, who happens to be a
professional illustrator.

Point being, its not like it was contracted to a professional design team.
They took a very efficient programmer-like path: have a relative who knows
design make it. And I love that as a geek, and I love the gopher, but from the
perspective of a design professional its time the language got a true logo in
addition to a geeky mascot.

------
coleifer
[https://i.ytimg.com/vi/335Qnh-
GRcA/maxresdefault.jpg](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/335Qnh-GRcA/maxresdefault.jpg)

------
Fukkaudeku
Ironically, it looks very generic.

~~~
paultopia
DOH. I totally came here to make this very joke. You win, good gentleperson.
You win.

------
tzakrajs
The logo reminds me of the old ATT 4G LTE logo
[https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lcdgiiTwcYs/UYvQNF3qnzI/AAAAAAAAm...](https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lcdgiiTwcYs/UYvQNF3qnzI/AAAAAAAAm-8/RRX7n_0S9KA/s1600/att-
flame.png)

------
gaius
Once the marketing types take over its the beginning of the end.

------
bitmapbrother
The new logo actually has its roots in the original logo designed by Renee
French.

[https://blog.golang.org/gopher/logo.png](https://blog.golang.org/gopher/logo.png)

Rene French also suggested they use the Gopher, he originally designed for a
radio station promotion, as the mascot for the language.

------
nukeop
Go developers are busy making fancy (or rather, pretty generic and bland)
logos and thinking about "brand identities", while developers who use other
languages do actual work. Does a programming language really need a logo, a
cartoony mascot, an entire "brand guide" pamphlet and a "visual identity"? RMS
was right when he said that software industry is more fashion-driven than
women's fashion. We see this when developers pick their tools not according to
their functionality, but to what is trendy and looks cool at the moment.

~~~
notriddle
I'm pretty sure that Google hires separate people to work on branding and
programming.

------
downer68
Honest opinion: Yuck.

Constructive feedback: I prefer the Gopher.

------
kown223
at start I actually had doubts on go due to the mascot and the naming, like Go
-> Google, they name it after the company, another thing they expect to put
google in front of it and we have to love it.

------
rajeshpant
why kill the gopher?

