
The New Google Logo and Kerning - millisecond
http://ak.vbroek.org/2015/09/03/the-new-google-logo-and-kerning/
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Quanttek
It's not like the Google designers didn't try to - alteast partially - mitgate
the perceived space. For whatever reason they didn't.

But, atleast in my humble opinion, her kerning is way better.The 'gle' doesn't
seem so squished, but the 'G' shouldn't use the same space as between the
'o's. It's just way bigger (vertically and horizontally) and more "qubic". So
I would sggest to add 1-2px between 'G' and 'o' and it would be even better

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ma2rten
I feel Google's kerning is too squished, but hers to too far apart.

I wonder if one could come up with some kind of formula to calculate the
distance between the letters as perceived by the majority of people, based on
say pixel density.

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threatofrain
It's possible that "good kerning" interacts with factors like distance from
screen and font size. So you cannot isomorphically scale up. That would mean
Google would actually need different kerning for different contexts.

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TheBiv
"I feel that the intensity of the childlike design grates against the
realities of Google as a company — which generally I am a big fan of but —
that involve some pretty weighty and adult issues involving privacy and user
rights. I don’t want Google to be childlike. Fun, yes. Childlike, no. So, the
design feels optimistically naive or pessimistically deceptive."

I have no idea how we went from a discussion about kerning to a discussion
regarding the nature of Google's corporate structure and values.

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Maken
Because design is not about making things pretty, but about making things
attractive. Google is not changing their design just because. Behind the
childish fonts, colorful interfaces and simple icons there is a careful
thought about what Google believes it's the best way to present itself to its
costumers.

How Google is, or more specifically, how Google wants people to think it is,
it's implicitly present in every single design choice, even in a seemingly
irrelevant one as the relative distribution of the logo's letters.

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jrochkind1
And for a company of Google's size, it's safe to say Google was considering
the same issues OP was too, and what their branding conveyed regarding them.
Yep, even down to the pixel.

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jrochkind1
I'll admit i don't perceive much difference. But:

> Of these, most prominently, is the desire to appear playful and childlike. I
> see it.... However, more strongly, I feel that the intensity of the
> childlike design grates against the realities of Google as a company—which
> generally I am a big fan of but—that involve some pretty weighty and adult
> issues involving privacy and user rights. I don’t want Google to be
> childlike.

Yes, that's exactly what Google DOESN'T want you to think about, which is
perhaps why they want to appear playful and childlike.

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michaelpinto
Of course Angela's kerning is 100% better, but in terms of branding Google has
always been "anti-design" so maybe the bad kerning was planned?

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anon4
I actually like Google's kerning better. In Angela's version, the l stands out
too much. Its unique green colour already makes it more noticeable than the
other letters and spacing it out this much makes it too prominent.

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kijin
Yeah, I think she overdid the kerning on the "l". It looks separated from the
rest of the word. Perhaps 13px (compromise between Google's 11px version and
Angela's 15px version) would work better?

Speaking of color, the yellow "o" blends into the white background and makes
the space between the two "o"s, as well as the space between "o" and "g", look
smaller than they actually are. In order to look consistent, the other
characters need to be closer together than they would ideally be in a black-
and-white version.

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ori_b
I can't tell the difference, honestly.

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Retra
So there's this phenomenon that I see on occasion that I call "Invented
problems" where somebody invents some concept like a 'soul' just so they can
sell you their authority in saving it.

I'm not trying to belittle anyone for being a kerning snob, since I know
there's a good amount of pleasure and life to be had in concerning yourself
with a narrow passion, but I can't shake the feeling that people who care
about kerning more than the point of simply knowing that it exists and is
called that as a matter of trivia haven't been sold an invented problem. And
also that the efforts they put into it are so myopic that it risks tone-
deafness.

For example, I keep hearing that monospaced fonts are 'bad' because "m's are
crunched together, but i's have all this room..." Ok... That adds character to
your words. The sequence "iiii" is loose and free, and the sequence "mmmm" is
busy and monolithic. Why is that a problem? It 'hurts readability' somehow?
That's like saying that personality hurts relationships because you can't just
put everyone in the same group. The words 'phenomenon' and 'somebody' feel
different from 'soul' and 'authority' because they have different shapes, and
that might be a very good thing.

Anyway, my point is this: whenever I read about somebody putting significant
effort into something like kerning, I'm left feeling like they don't even know
if they are making a huge mistake and 'fixing' something that was already
optimal, and in fact, could be optimal without anyone giving a single real
thought on the kerning. All this effort is being spent on something that isn't
actually making the world better in any relevant way.

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sjwright
Kerning isn't an invented problem like saving your soul. Kerning exists
whether you believe in it or not.

It's a core aspect of all typography, almost as much as the letter shapes
themselves. The real problem is that like many disciplines that tightly
intertwine design and engineering aspects, the right answers aren't quite as
precise or objective as you might hope.

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Retra
Kerning isn't the invented problem. The importance of marginal gains by
adjusting kerning in logo design is.

Imagine if I wrote an article where I was claiming that the blue component of
the logo color should be 3% lighter. Maybe it's a real improvement. My concern
is that the color of the logo on that scale is such a small part of what makes
it a good design or not, that my reflex of analyzing it in that way is
counter-productive to being a good designer. I'm not saying color is
unimportant. I'm saying the focus might be too narrow to be used to do design.

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yAak
In addition to letter shape, the letter colors (in relation to each other)
also change the perceived whitespace. So, in my opinion, it should be kerned
differently than her proposal, and Google's version looks better to me. But,
frankly, the yellow "o" will always make it look off to me.

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JamesMcMinn
I prefer the slightly closer kerning of the Goog in her version, however I
much prefer the current kerning for the l.

Having said that, I don't think there's anything wrong with the current
kerning. I actually suspect the wide spacing is more do with readability when
scaled down more than anything else.

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micampe
Kerning and tracking are often adjusted differently at different point sizes,
especially if you are designing logos and can easily tweak them manually.

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JamesMcMinn
Absolutely, and for most logos that's fine, however when you're the size of
Google, controlling which version of your logo someone decides to use isn't
easy. Sometimes it's better to assume that people are going to use your logo
at sizes you didn't intend and in places you never expected, so having a bit
of breathing room isn't a bad idea.

Having said that, I don't really expect Google would have chosen their current
kerning simply so that it (potentially) downscales better - I'm sure they have
more important criteria.

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aaronbrethorst
Tim Gunn, not "Time Gunn," but—fwiw—if I was starting a band, I would totally
name it "Time Gunn." Make it work :)

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huangc10
Great eye and I have to say, it really makes me think twice now that I look at
the logo every time. However, it's still a subjective matter. Now the question
is how long did it take the Google design team to decide on the Kerning? Must
have been a vote imo.

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Steko
If you read through the comments there's some interesting info and background
including that the kerning of the new logo is not consistent on their website
and the one on the homepage is "more off" than other versions. Also a link to
a Russian designer's take on the same issue.

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zekevermillion
Would be interesting to see some data on how people perceive the relative
kerning between curved letters as opposed to straight lines.

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herbig
"Each time I pulled up the search engine (which is often), I spent more time
than usual staring at the doodle above the search bar."

Does this person actually type "www.google.com" into the address bar and press
enter?

Maybe it's editorial license and that's not actually the case, but it's still
concerning.

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grrowl
On Chrome, it displays the Google logo on every New Tab page (by default)

