Well, only a couple more days to wait for what is sure to be another great Google Doodle. Often, coming up to a national holiday or other special occasion, Google takes liberties with their own logo. Calling it a Google Doodle, the internet giant has allowed itself to apply a little levity to the whole concept of branding and the critical importance companies place on keeping their brand mark recognizable and consistent.
A couple years ago, humorist Paul Jury had a piece on Huffington Post in which he explained “Google designers aren’t the only people who can use the powerful tool of evil that is Photoshop to gussy up their logo…”
Image Credit: Paul Jury
He then proceeded to show off a few funny home-grown adaptations.
Some of my favorites real Google Doodles over the years have actually been interactive; allowing you to strum a guitar on Les paul’s birthday for instance. I hope on Independance day I get to crank up my own fireworks display. Maybe spell out my name using sparklers or something.
However, as my favorite childhood entertainer Captain Penney would have said: “Kids- don’t try what you’re seeing at home!”
Google as a preeminent marketer, can take liberties with their logo. Or should I say LOGOS. Either way, your company has only one logo. Plan for it to be used consistently, in multiple colors, in black and white and as a 2 color (more often used in print than in web design as a cost-saving consideration.) When it is time to re-design make sure you shrink the designer’s concepts down to business card size of the artwork. Perhaps even more important in today’s web-marketing world see how that new logo looks when reduced to fit a 125 x 125 pixel sized ad.
