
I always give Google tons of crap, because I cannot comprehend how a company who at one time had stocks steadily in the $500 range, can have such ugly products. I mean, they have adult slides, guitar hero rooms, and endless insanity in their posh offices that make the .com offices of late 90’s look modest. But yet, they cannot hire a descent design team? I mean, seriously, gmail, calendar, all these web apps are FUGLY. It is easily noticeable how they were coded, then they “polished the turd” with some quick CSS and called it a wrap. If I am wrong on this process, then that makes the overall design even that much more lame.
So, I was happy to see Google actually commissioned a custom face for Android. The face is called Droid and was created over 2 tears by a company called Ascender Corporation. The face looks pretty nice, especially once you know the project briefing Ascender was given - ‘They wanted to see a range of styles, from the typical, bubbly Google image to something very techno-looking,’
Now, a company who has a rainbow inner bevel logo, to get a font like this as a middle ground on their idea, I think is a damn sweet deal. Now, too bad they didn’t spend that much time on the actual Android interface. That interface makes Windows 95 look like solid gold. Common Google, hire some damn designers. Wait, let me rephrase that, hire some GOOD designers.
I just couldn’t agree more. I am bound to their services and love them, but if they would have cared more about design, I wouldn’t even leave my computer. If the design could be as smart as the apps!
Thank you! I’ve been meaning to write about the Google logo for years, but haven’t found the right angle. If the Google logo was a person, it would be that American Idol guy, William Hung (http://www.williamhung.net/)
I think there could be a long discussion on that ‘logo.’ I will have to say, it does show an interesting point of how a logo doesn’t to be pretty, for people to remember it. Using one (actually two) of the most common Photoshop filter techniques from the 90’s, it has still struck a chord with people, good or bad. Really, I almost forgot the about that logo’s ugliness because I see it daily. But when I really sit and stare at it, its just extremely generic and sorry. Now I am having strange-depressing thoughts of Geocities websites.
Oh and one extremely strange fact, the guy who ‘designed’ that logo, Dennis Hwang, actually went to the same high school as me in Knoxville, TN. How strange is that? But upon reading his wiki, you will see his background really sums up my point about design coming after code. ‘His actual position was Google’s international webmaster’ -wiki