Skip to main content

Google Says Bye Bye to Bevelled Look

By
The new logo on Google UK 'looks flatter' according to BBC News's Leo Kelion (2013); I have to admit I was unsure if this was an actual change or not, to start with and took a double take, but it appears to be on a slow roll-out, the changes to the interface are subtle but very focussed on removing distractions and streamlining both the page layout (if it could be any more streamlined) and the user experience. Clearly, there are larger changes afoot, but if they are as subtle as these most users perhaps will not notice so much.

The logo itself does feel cleaner now that the bevel has been removed, but could this be argued too simplistic? Eddie Kessler of Google (2013) stated in their official blog that they have also updated the colour palette and the letter forms, but these are very subtle differences indeed; the relationship between the first 'G' and 'o' does seem still to be quite awkward, but as ever this logo is as much about the negative space as it is the form of the characters and their relationships - something always draws me to the space inside the 'G'.

Google is the landing point for many people and the changes seem on the face of it, an improvement and in keeping with their developments of late, appear to be further integrating the G+ side of things and their portfolio of web applications. They have incorporated the conventional icon for app menu / launchers into the design and the page does feel much cleaner, the menu works on absolute positioning from the right until the browser window is resized below 1000px in width on a desktop and the changes don't appear to have reached the mobile site yet.

So the new menu is much simpler, with only +You, Gmail and Images visible, with everything else hidden in the app menu; of course when you are logged in the Share dialogue and profile avatar are revealed and this is probably my favourite part of the change; having the share integrated directly into all Google pages is certainly designed to engage a wider audience with + through the now streamlined process. I am sure I will use this frequently in the future.


Kelion, L., 2013. Google revamps logo and search page. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24170053
[Accessed 20 September 2013].

Kelly, S. M., 2013. Google introduces new flatter logo. [Online]
Available at: http://mashable.com/2013/09/19/google-logo-change/
[Accessed 20 September 2013].

Kessler, E., 2013. Inside Search: The Official Google Search Blog. [Online]
Available at: http://insidesearch.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/updating-google-bar-many-products.html
[Accessed 20 September 2013].


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Open Source Teacher (… is born)

By
  Let’s keep this first post quick, a foot in the door and an introduction. The past year has been somewhat tumultuous and that was before even the dramatic events of the past year; I took a gamble with my career and it didn’t pay off, yet. Most people support the notion that the path to success is paved with failures; they lead us to learning key lessons and provided that we take something from each, we will make it there, some-when somehow. It’s not easy that’s for sure and the more you have in life, the greater the risks you face when you try to put yourself out there and try something new. This particularly project though is a personal one, an experiment if you please and a way to find a way to become part of the conversations that take place around certain subjects: Open Education, Technologically Enhanced Education and Open Source. I have always had an interest, but just never found the time to actually roll my sleeves up and get stuck in, until this year, for a couple of rea...
Post a Comment
Read more

Flash Player, HTML 5, Apple and Web Standards

By
It has been running in my head for a while now, the issue has certainly been covered by thousands of blogs and news articles, but it still grates a bit for me from two perspectives - firstly as someone who develops using the Flash environment and secondly as a media lecturer. Flash player is essentially dead on the mobile web, less so on the desktop based version - and I appreciate using the AIR environment to create 'native' applications, which is proving to be great - although there are always going to be things that can't be achieved with it in comparison to developing say for instance in Java or X-Code. The problem is in killing it off (Flash Player not Flash itself) there are likely to be millions of resources which are inaccessible, it was never great for building websites unless there was a need for it - and for me there can be a need to create highly interactive and animated web content, Nikon's Universcale is one example for instance of many wonderful resour...
Post a Comment
Read more

New Website

By
So here is where the blog changes track, after years in limbo and not really serving the purpose it was originally intended to, now my blog is going to become a little more professionally focused. In the first week of 2013 I have decided to get in gear and sort out the portfolio website, which for most of the last year has only really had a placeholder marking my intention to update the look and the content; and before this it had of course been home to my college and university portfolio work. This is all still here but hidden behind the scenes, hopefully I will be able to root through it and find some work still worthy of display. This now is all to change, I do produce quite a large amount of flash files as part of my teaching, on occasion websites too and as part of that a large number of graphics. I have started to realise that I have amassed a substantial amount of work, and really I should be using it to showcase myself and skills to eventually hopefully work for me...
Post a Comment
Read more