What Google's new logo means for the rest of us

With the introduction of Google’s new logo, a modern age of design and business synergy has finally ushered its way onto center stage. Since 1999, the tech giant hasn’t done much to change its unmistakable four colored serif font; only making trivial changes as recent as last year. In fact, the most recent change they implemented was almost indistinguishable, suggesting that Google designers had finally hit a dead end.

Yet with this new logo, there is almost no resemblance to the old logo besides the coloration. What is unusual, however, is Google’s explanation for this somewhat abrupt transformation in design. Rather than aesthetics, Google claims that its 16 year old logo was redesigned for the sake of improved functionality. In Google’s press release, they even claimed that “[The new logo] has tremendous impact when you consider our goal of making Google more accessible and useful to users around the world, including the next billion.”

So what does this mean for the rest of us?

What is design?

“Design” can take on many meanings based on how you interpret it. A quick Google search defines design as a “purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object.” Design, both good and bad, exists all around us; nature itself has a continuous process of updating its own in order to increase its odds of survival. Additionally, according to the definition of “design”, it cannot exist without planning or thought, which imply that the outcome of whatever is being “designed” is intentional. As the famous saying goes, form follows function, and that holds true whether it’s a simple website, or a city. More importantly, it is often the simplest of designs that allow for the most growth and innovation.

An investment.

Design-centric ideology is not a new topic, but it has often been overlooked, especially in larger firms. In many cases, especially finance-based businesses, design is often seen as an inessential cost. There are many examples where it can be observed that these institutions believe that it is much more cost effective to produce a cheaper product and get it to market faster in order to capture market share. Yet, the products are received poorly and the companies are forced to go back to the drawing board. It is ironic that many of these same businesses perform due diligence to seek good investments, yet they tend to miss the most obvious one internally. Investing in good design is analogous to investing in long term growth. Often the complications of finance discourage those outside the industry, especially younger generations, from investing due to complicated and confusing interfaces that make the learning curve for usage arduous and steep.

A new trend has emerged.

It does not go with mentioning, however, that new financial startups bring strong design principles with their products, into the market. Owing to their beautiful interfaces and easy to use products, they are gaining a great deal of traction in the market. Two more popular apps, Robinhood and Acorns, take advantage of good end user design to help even the most novice investors put money into the market. Their clean and understandable user interfaces are welcoming to younger and older audiences and bestow on them confidence that they too can partake in investing and trading.

So now that Google is backing good design as a strong factor for functionality and usability, it will be interesting to see if more firms start paying attention to their own design.