The expanding 'geek-o-vision'

摘要

Google's logo might well be the world's most-viewed piece of design - which is odd, because those jolly, serif-ish, multicoloured letters look more typed in than designed. Its graphic tropes are from a desktop publishing pattern book: gratuitous use of colour; drop-shadowed and awkwardly-sized. They are often embellished with a clip-art drawing, celebrating the significance of a date, such as Hallowe'en. The result looks like something a primary school teacher might print and laminate, rather than the moniker of one of the most innovative technology and media corporations. But that might be why it works, a triumph of geekish blindness to the niceties of design. It's at odds with both Apple's hyper-refined aesthetics and Microsoft's over-cooked concoctions of compromise. Google's search and results pages seem un-spun, somehow more honest than those worked over by branding experts and designers.