My favorite logo

I don’t want to come off like a Google fanboy. But I think that the Braille logo:

Braille Google Logo

is the best Google logo evah. Even better than the Mondrian logo?

Google Mondrian Logo

Yes, even better than the Mondrian logo. In fact, the Braille logo looks even better than the Seurat logo, which does not exist in our time-space continuum. Maybe I can hit up Dennis Hwang for a signed print some day. If I weren’t a very lazy man with abominable JavaScript skills, I would write a Greasemonkey script to show the Braille logo all the time.

Okay, I’ve gushed, so I want to include something critical of Google to balance it out. Want to hear my least favorite Google url parameter? Okay, it’s “&btnG=Google+Search”. If you type in a random word and press enter, it appears on the end of your url like an uninvited guest. I despise that parameter. It adds no value to my life as a user. If I wrote a Greasemonkey script to always show the Braille logo, I would also write code to drop that godforsaken btnG parameter. It’s a blight on my existence when I just want a simple url to copy-and-paste. πŸ™‚

72 Responses to My favorite logo (Leave a comment)

  1. Seconded, about &btnG=Google+Search (and it’s variations in different languages)

  2. I think your google holiday logos (http://www.google.com/doodle10.html) were also very cute. Too bad they didn’t stay for long. πŸ™‚

  3. Is it me, or do others find it ironic one needs sight to read Google’s Braille logo? It’s a bit like those signs you see on door of some food stores, “sorry, no guidedogs allowed”. πŸ™‚

  4. I think the Braille logo rocked as well! Is there an official place where we can see the different logo styles produced?

  5. Damn that logo scared me. I turn on my computer and open firefox and the first thing to appear is that logo. I was like what? what happened? did someone hack google? lol

  6. That’s why ALT tags > me. I had no idea what I was looking at when I opened up Google yesterday.

    And Matt – thanks for inspiring me, I’m now hacking my way through my first Greasemonkey script to try and meet your requests. I’m sure someone will have it done before me, but it’s good practice.

  7. >>hit up Dennis Hwang for a signed print some day

    Matt – maybe you are on to a VERY cool idea to raise charity money. I bet a lot of people would donate for a Hwang signed original logo design. I’ll put my money where mouth is and offer $1000 to NetAid or Google.org for one. Rich folks might offer a lot more and that’s even better.

  8. I totally agree. I thought the logo was fabulous. Although it might have been a bit too clever – everyone else at work was like “Huh?” until they had it explained. I look forward to the Morse code logo on 27 April

  9. Best logo “evah?” What are you, a closet Bostonian?

    I think the logo is cool, but I don’t know Braille, so I can’t fully appreciate it. Where is Helen Keller when we need her?

  10. I think all of the different Google graphics add a personal touch to the company – a lot of other search engines such as MSN are impersonal

    The best ones seem to be the sequence ones that evolve over a number of days (you can see them on Googles website here: http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html)

  11. Agreed. Even if you didn’t know braille, you’d instantly know what that says. Those colors are all you need to recognise Google – perhaps they should patent the use of those colors in that order! (Heinz patented that turquoise color they use on their Baked Beans tins, so I don’t see why not.)

    > Okay, it’s β€œ&btnG=Google+Search”. If you type in a random word and press enter, it appears on the end of your url like an uninvited guest.

    I don’t think it does…

    If you type a random word and click the “Google Search” button, it adds the btnG parameter to your request. However… if you press return or enter, it gets omitted.

  12. Matt, I hate that parameter plus =Google which show up if you use the search button on the results page, rather than the home page. It’s almost certainly in use just for tracking purposes, right? Why not remove it from at least the search results page and assume if you don’t see it, it was a search button there? Whenever I post URL examples, I’m always hunting down and removing all these various parameters to try and get to as close as a “pure” string that everyone else can use and see the same (you know, assuming they’re all in the same country, not running saved preferences, not hitting different data centers — oh my πŸ™‚ )

  13. ladies, here it is: http://search.effisk.net

    stripped from any parameters other than q and I just customized it for you.

    Enjoy.

  14. You forgot to mention these rejected Google holiday logos πŸ˜‰
    http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2006-01-05-n11.html

  15. I loved the new logo – it was very creative and whoever thought of that is a genious.. although it can’t be used by disabled people, but it does show that someone care and shows interest.

    Google scores another point πŸ˜‰

  16. Be careful Matt, you will also fall into the recycled news trap, but Google is your badboy so if you don’t blog it, someone else will. This will also place your voice up there with those who are sometimes speaking badly of you. This stuff is extremely interesting…

    I also couldn’t help but give props to that Braille logo on my blog last evening BUT I blogged it before you, so you are the one recycling news Mr. Cutts! πŸ˜‰

    Interested in blogging about the insane response to the bland Xmas logo this year in Google groups?

    Question: If I put a no follow in the link above does Google see that as a bad paid type link or does it simply ignore it? I am afraid to do anything wrong these days…

    Yeah that Mr. Lenssen, I was going to blog that for you, good stuff! πŸ™‚

  17. Easy fix for the URL, use a POST instead of a GET πŸ™‚ Should be pretty easy to do in GM, I think there is a document.forms collection. If the backend can process it is another question…

    Sean

  18. Cool, I never knew some countries can see different logos. The story about the UK seeing a poppy for rememberence day that no other country saw interesting. I wonder what else were missing. Is there a Google logo history gallery?

  19. This Logo has to be my all time favorite: But who’s the guy?

    http://blog.outer-court.com/files/rejected-logo-9.jpg

    MC is one of my favorite artists of all time. You’ll replicas all over my living room.

  20. Matt

    This is SPAMZILLA

    http://www.massheros.com

    Whats the game plan with this lol ???

    Can we send a Spmmy Award??

    Clint

  21. You can use usercontent.css to replace google’s logo permanently.

  22. Gaston Julia. that’s it. that’s the list. πŸ™‚

    http://www.google.com/intl/en/logos/julia.gif

  23. Clint,

    You get nada when you do a site: search on massheros.com… πŸ™‚

  24. I thought the braille logo was pretty cool too. I wonder if blind people liked it as much? 😐

  25. LOL Brian, Done!

    :-O

  26. I dunno…I just wasn’t feeling it. And a few people I talked to yesterday didn’t even get it (I had to explain what it was).

    If you want to make it even more geeky, why not an ASCII character value logo?

    71 111 111 103 108 101

    You could really confuse the public then! πŸ™‚

  27. Why doesn’t google sell it’s logo? You know, one day it could say Goo Amazon.com oogle, the next day Goo gopulls.com oogle, etc? It’s really the next step past text ads, right?

  28. A lot of the special occasion google logos I don’t get. Alt text does have it’s uses. πŸ˜‰

  29. lol Scott. I guess your website fell into those big holes of Google sandbox. All you could do is get some links from good PR websites.

  30. “I thought the braille logo was pretty cool too. I wonder if blind people liked it as much? :-|”

    Too funny! and a little mean..:)

  31. Matt, I need your advice regarding the site http://www.stopseospam.com Please reply me as soon as possible, because I have a question about the legal disclaimer.

    Thanks!

  32. Hi Matt,
    The btnG parameter does have at least one function — on the results page, it causes the following search tip to be shown:

    Tip: Save time by hitting the return key instead of clicking on “search”

    A nice tip for users who always use the mouse to submit forms, instead of pressing enter.

  33. I like the Braille Logo, very original and creative.

    I thought that Bigdaddy update affect all, including the logo !!

  34. like this?

    http://www.cheesehole.net/upload/googleascii.gif

    You know, no one was actually supposed to DO that. πŸ˜›

  35. Definately the best logo so far – neat! Is there anywhere to make suggestions for days/events for Dennis Hwang – just in case we really would like a logo for something?

  36. And here’s the JavaScript from my previous comment with the less-than escaped:

    var nodes = document.getElementsByTagName(“input”);
    for (var i = 0; i < nodes.length; ++i) {
    if (nodes[i].getAttribute(“name”) == “btnG”) {
    nodes[i].removeAttribute(“name”);
    }
    }

  37. at $99 for the catull font I look for as many uses to use it as possible. πŸ™‚

  38. Matt, take a look at this.

    http://www.webproworld.com/viewtopic.php?p=274529#274529

    There is a monster on the loose, creating large keyword rich auto generated websites..

  39. Ryan, the guy inside the Escher glass bowl is Sergey Brin…

  40. Ahh that makes sense.. I’ve never seen a portrait of sergey. Perhaps if they just put the google logo in the glass It’d have been used. Escher is great.

    That one, and “the puddle” are my 2 favorite. They’re in my living room.

  41. Scott, if I’ve approved you once, it passes your comment right through. If you want to leave a “*** DO NOT APPROVE ***” post, I’d do it with a different email address and name.

    Joe, good idea. Probably more scalable to find a way to enable Google users to give money to charity more easily though. It’s weird. Once you work at Google, if someone comes to your front door to ask for money, you start thinking “how would I do that in a scalable, robust way?”

    I’m totally with you, Danny. That parameter dates waaaay back, so maybe no one uses it. Or maybe there’s another way to get that data. Or maybe we don’t need that data as much any more (why not just show it to a subsample of people to get the stats that you need?). Either way, me and btnG are at cross-purposes. πŸ™‚

  42. “Once you work at Google, if someone comes to your front door to ask for money, you start thinking β€œhow would I do that in a scalable, robust way?”

    Now that is funny Matt :)))

  43. I recognized the Braille logo immediately and thought it was dumb. Braille is tactile, not visual.

  44. is there someplace where we can see a history of logo’s, google has gone through? like a google photo (logo) gallery? I’d be interested in seeing the history of googles logo from the beginning! πŸ™‚

  45. Matt – your find-scalable-charity-giving is a very cool idea for the people who manage Google.org Charities waste a lot of time on low yield bake sales and in inefficient use of volunteers. Scalable? Just chain Dennis to a chair and say “DRAW MAN DRAW!”

  46. Hey REALLY sorry Matt I thought I was doing it the way it was supposed to be posted. Now that you’ve replied in public, I’m sitting here looking for an email (hopeful and ambitious? lol ) Or will you simply not do that, and maybe the scenario should be posted in public in the blog? Either way please let me know, thank you so much for any of your time. And keep up the work on the awesome, and one of the most important blogs available to read on the net!

  47. Yeah I think that logo is the best one yet.

    I personally showed all my “geek” friends yesterday who hadnt seen it. πŸ™‚

  48. Here is one to be displayed at the Smithsonian oneday Google Beta

  49. Matt,

    Quickly adapted a Greasemonkey script I wrote a while ago to display the Braille logo on the main Google.com page. You can get it at:

    http://bluwavedesign.co.uk/greasemonkey/googlebraille.user.js

  50. Sorry for the double-comment…

    Darrell, there’s a brief history of the Google logo at the very bottom of http://www.google.com/intl/en/customlogos.html

  51. I agree! I loved yesterday’s Braille logo. I’ve certainly loved many logos, but in terms of high concept that was tops. I’m glad that Google’s logo artwork is so ubiquitous and expected that they can afford to do something edgy like this, where the logo isn’t even legible in the strictest sense. Kudos to Google for taken this chance.

  52. I recognized the Braille logo immediately and thought it was dumb. Braille is tactile, not visual.

    Before you spout your mouth off talk to someone who is blind, a friend of mine who reads ALT tags with his reader was very happy about it. The visual was for the rest of us to bitch and moan about…I guess.

  53. Hi Matt,

    In case you didn’t know, there is a widget to personalize the Google logo on the Personalized Home. http://www.google.com/ig/directory

    The thing is that you can only choose from a list of logos and the Braille one isn’t in the list (yet).

    Actually, the source is available, so maybe you can modify it to include the Braille logo?

  54. Yes, modifying that module is very easy.

    I’ve modified my version of it to also change the google logo to an MSN or Yahoo one, and change the search box to point to the appropriate search engine as well.

    not entirely useful, but neat.

  55. Matt wrote:
    [quote]Joe, good idea. Probably more scalable to find a way to enable Google users to give money to charity more easily though. It’s weird. Once you work at Google, if someone comes to your front door to ask for money, you start thinking β€œhow would I do that in a scalable, robust way?”[/quote]

    Actually Matt – I think it is both brilliant & scaleable. Google could sell the ‘original’ artwork at a premium; and do a limited edition of say 1,000 prints @ say $100 – $200 a piece.

    Sell the prints via the Google store – and then just donate the money (by my maths thats’ $100K – 200K) to whichever charity is the ‘closest charity’ to the event – eg The Royal Blind society could get the funds from the Braille logo etc.

    Charity fundraising is often just as much about awareness (of issues, diseases etc) as it is about raising funds – using the logo this way would achieve both…….

    And as there are numerous ‘national’ events which get a special event logo – like ANZAC Day here in Australia – its scaleable across the world.

  56. I agree, Matt, I think the logo was probably the best ever. Do you guys accept suggestions for cool logo’s?

  57. Darrell: Google’s logo history is here

    http://www.google.com/intl/en/holidaylogos.html

  58. Look like it chopped it off at the less-than brace, I’ll try again – sorry for spam πŸ™‚

    // alter-google.com-logo
    // ==UserScript==
    // @name alter-google.com-logo
    // @namespace http:// [removed]
    // @description Replace Google.com logo
    // @include http://www.google.com/
    // ==/UserScript==

    (function() {
    var images = document.getElementsByTagName(‘img’);
    for (var i = 0; i < images.length; i++){
    var img = images[i];
    if (img.getAttribute(‘src’) == ‘/intl/en/images/logo.gif’)
    {
    img.setAttribute(‘src’, ‘PUT YER URL IN HERE πŸ™‚ SIMPLE!’);
    img.setAttribute(‘height’, ”);
    img.setAttribute(‘width’, ”);
    break;
    }
    }
    })();

  59. Ok, that should work if you switch the left and right single quotes for normal single quotes πŸ™‚

  60. “I’m totally with you, Danny. That parameter dates waaaay back, so maybe no one uses it. ”

    The browser puts it there automatically if the submit button has a value, since it treats the button like another parameter.

    My erm, ‘adult’ search engine http://fissog.com/ has the same problem.

    If they left the form saying “submit” instead of “Google Search” then it wouldn’t be appended because the submit button wouldn’t have the value “Google Search”.

  61. Indeed! Everyone in our office loved it.

    Can’t wait for the next Googo (Google logo)! How’s that? Can I coin that term now? he he πŸ˜‰

    V

  62. I am a legally blind person (low vision) who can read some Braille. I really appreciated the logo. I knew exactly what it was when I saw it. Braille needs more attention. Not enough people that need it are being taught it. The establishment thinks that if you can read any print at all you don’t need to learn Braille. Because of this there are many illiterate people out there with low vision. Unless you can read exactly like a sighted person you should learn Braille.

  63. typing in the googo.com name looks like some domainer already beat you to it.

  64. Matt:

    Thanks for the great work and helpful information.

    I am interested in any insites you can give us about dynamic links, spidering and canonicalization. The discussion I would love to see is concerning how database/query driven content is spidered and how to avoid content duplication penalties.

    A few years ago I devised a static directory structure to allow our product pages to be indexed correctly. This has worked pretty well and is clearly white hat.

    1. Although the products each have a static page in our directory, they can also be pulled up by a query string so http://www.psprint.com/printing_products/premium_flyers_printing.asp is the same content as http://www.psprint.com/products/index.asp?dc=1040 except the static landing page contains a unique unique header whereas the dynamic version has a common header.

    2. http://www.psprint.com/printing_products/premium_flyers_printing.asp may also be diplayed with tracking links, resulting in http://www.psprint.com/printing_products/premium_flyers_printing.asp?engine=adwords+keyword=flyer+printing

    Occassionally, I have seen the base URL and the URL with the tracking links show up as 2 separate links. Any information would be great.

    Thanks

  65. You can pick any Google logo you like, add this to the Google Personalised Home Page
    http://www.google.com/ig/modules/googlelogo.xml

  66. How the hell can the blind see it to appreciate it?

  67. Dan Freakly, see the following comments above:

    Aaron Pratt Said,
    January 5, 2006 @ 5:04 am

    David Ogletree Said,
    January 6, 2006 @ 9:48 am

  68. I love/respect Dr. King, but today’s logo is a tad on the cheesy side.

  69. Hey, I like the Mondrian Logo, but isn’t it against Google Trademark to put their logo on your website?

  70. Google ignore UK Mothers?
    Did google.co.uk forget to upload their homage mother’s day logo to the millions of UK Mothers on mothers day Sunday 26th March?

    As an American led search giant that makes a point of acknowledging countries customs by changing the google logo to reflect the countries occasions, it seems to have forgotten about Mothersday on Sunday 26th March. So to help you out I have made a google a logo for you http://www.affiliateprogramadvice.com/deargoogle.htm .

    Regards

    Jessica Luthi

  71. I totally agree – GOOGLE is an amzing brand!

    It is dynamic, modern, creative and aesthetically appealing. The designers need a good pat on their back’s for this ingenious brand.

    Well done GOOGLE!

    http://www.threerooms.com

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