The Google Logo History — From BackRub to the "G"
The Google logo is one of the most recognizable in the world — and one of the most conservative: in a quarter century the company never changed the name in the mark or the four‑color scheme. Only the typefaces and the degree of polish changed. Here is the full timeline — from a student project to the "G" living on billions of phones.
Key milestones: 1997 — the first logo for a project recently renamed from BackRub; 1999 — the Catull serif version with a drop shadow that lasted 11 years; 2010 — flatter and brighter; 2015 — the full redesign: the geometric Product Sans typeface and the four‑color G for icons; today — the same system plus doodles and animation. Current files are in our catalog.
1997-1998BackRub and first experiments
Larry Page and Sergey Brin's search engine was originally called BackRub, after the backlinks its algorithm analyzed. In 1997 the project was renamed Google (a twisted "googol" — one followed by a hundred zeros) and got its first logo: the name set in a default typeface with a primitive 3D effect. Sergey Brin made it himself in the free editor GIMP.
The very first color version already contained the idea that would outlive every redesign: letters in four colors — blue, red, yellow, green. The multicolor scheme nods to a children's building set: the founders wanted to show Google "doesn't play by the rules" — even the color order breaks the pattern (after a blue‑red‑yellow sequence, the "l" is unexpectedly green).
1999-2010The Catull era — serifs and shadow
In 1999 a professional took over: artist and designer Ruth Kedar. After dozens of explorations she settled on the serif typeface Catull: it combined an academic feel (search = knowledge, a library) with lively enough forms. The logo got a light shadow and volume — the fashion of the day — and lived in that form for eleven years, becoming the backdrop of an entire internet era.
This is also the version the doodle phenomenon grew on: since 1998 Google has replaced its logo with themed illustrations or games on holidays. Doodles turned the most conservative element of the site into the most alive one — a classic dynamic logo, as described in types of logos.
2010The big cleanup
In 2010 the logo was tidied: most of the shadow removed, colors brighter and cleaner, letters slightly lighter. Structurally the same mark, but breathing more modern air. It was a preparatory step — the internet was rapidly moving into phones, and a shadowed serif logo felt worse and worse on small screens.
2015Product Sans and the four‑color G
On September 1, 2015 Google shipped the most radical redesign in its history — a perfect illustration of the trend covered in why brands simplify their logos:
- Typeface. The serif Catull gave way to Google's own geometric sans, Product Sans — round forms, open apertures, zero volume. On how type defines a mark's character: choosing a logo font.
- The G. A compact version appeared — the four‑color G for favicons, app icons and avatars. It solved the problem every wordmark faces: a full name is unreadable at 16 pixels (see how to make a favicon).
- The dots. The third element — four animated dots meaning "Google is listening/thinking/answering" in the voice assistant.
- Weight. The new flat logo takes mere kilobytes as a vector versus hundreds for the old one — critical on slow mobile networks. Why vector wins so much: vector vs raster graphics.
The 2015 redesign is often attributed to flat‑design fashion, but Google had a purely technical motive: the old logo with its smoothed serifs needed raster files per size, while the new geometric mark reproduces perfectly as a vector at any scale — from a smartwatch to a billboard.
Today: a system, not a picture
The modern Google logo is not one file but a system of three elements: the full wordmark, the G, and the dots. Around it lives a whole product ecosystem sharing the four‑color DNA: Chrome, Google Play, Google Drive and the rest of Google's services. In 2025 the G received its first visible update in a decade — hard borders between the four colors gave way to smooth gradient transitions, in the spirit of the AI era and the Gemini mark.
The timeline in one table
| Years | Typeface | Style | Event |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1997-1998 | default, 3D | homemade in GIMP | renamed from BackRub |
| 1999-2010 | Catull (serif) | shadow, volume | Ruth Kedar's version; doodles begin |
| 2010-2015 | Catull | flatter, brighter | prep for the mobile era |
| 2015-2025 | Product Sans | flat | the G, the dots, animation |
| 2025 – now | Product Sans | flat + gradient | the G with blended colors |
What the Google story teaches
- Consistency beats novelty. Four colors and the name unchanged for 25+ years — only the form evolved. Recognition compounds when the core is stable.
- You can play if the base is rigid. Thousands of doodles never diluted the brand precisely because the base mark is rock solid.
- A redesign should solve a problem, not refresh a picture. Every iteration answered a concrete challenge: professionalization (1999), cleanliness (2010), mobile screens and vector (2015).
Download the current Google logo in SVG and PNG on the brand page — with HEX codes of the brand colors (all four are also in brand colors of famous companies). On the legal side, see can you use someone else's logo.
More stories in the series: Apple, Sber, Yandex, Telegram, VKontakte.