Google’s Logo Shakes Things Up
In order to honor Sir Isaac Newton’s birthday, Google’s title bar featured an animated image of an apple falling to the bottom of the window. The plummeting fruit represents the legend of how Newton was inspired to develop the theory of gravity after an apple fell from a tree, hitting him on his head.
Google regularly updates its logo design with new images to commemorate notable dates or events, but this is the first time the site has utilized animation on its front page. Over the past decade, Google has altered its logo to recognize everything from traditional holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day to more obscure celebrations like the 25th anniversary of Tetris or St. David’s Day in the United Kingdom. Since its founding in 1998, Google has used more than 147 different commemorative logos.
The first commemorative Google logo appeared on January 1, 2000 to celebrate the beginning of a new millennium. The logo remained the same, only with a party hat sitting on the second “O” and confetti shown in the background. Google used only 4 special logos during 2000, which is a large contrast to the 37 different versions that appeared on their homepage during 2009.
In each commemorative logo, the letters in Google’s name are either mimicked or replaced by objects relating to the day, person or event being honored. In today’s Isaac Newton animation, for example, the falling apple takes the place of the first “O” in Google.
For years, Google.com has been a beacon of stability in the fast-changing world of web design. Google’s layout has always been minimal with a stark white background in order to emphasize the information they can connect you with instead of the site itself. Considering this, it makes sense that even a small change to Google’s interface can draw a lot of attention.
