For the first time in over eight years Google have updated their icon design. This small icon can be seen in your browser next to the URL. Its technical name is a favicon.

Google have spoken openly about this new design, which is unusual because Google tends to keep quiet about most of its other technology changes.

The reasoning behind the new lowercase ‘g’ is due to Google wanting the icon to scale better on mobile devices such as Apple’s iPhone and other similar platforms.

Michael Lopez a web designer at Google revealed that a whole new set of logos has been designed. Over three hundred different designs were tried and tested. In what was described as a “rigorous” design process.

Google needed a symbol that means Google. Currently they only have a logo which is the word “Google” spelt using different colours for each letter.

Lopez stated ““We wanted something distinctive and noticeable”. They were after something more noticeable than just a block shape. Another important criteria is that the design at to be timeless.

The current ‘g’ design is not confirmed as the final design that Google will use. They are currently calling for other doodles that optimise the brand for mobile devices.

“By no means is the one you’re seeing our favicon final; it was a first step to a more unified set of icons,” Lopez said.

“We really value feedback from users and want to hear your ideas that we may have missed. If you have your own notions about the Google favicon, please send them to use. We’ll do our best to work them in, and maybe your idea will be the one that people see billions of times per day.”

The general view is that the new design is bland and boring. A simple lowercase g design may be clear and simple but is graphically boring. It is understandable though that due to the logo being used at a very small scale they needed to be clear. A busy design would have been unreadable at such a small size.