Few logos have pained me as much as the original Gmail logo. It was a Frankensteinian creation by committee with so many things wrong with it that it's hard to pick the worst part. The mixture of fonts. The different letter weights. The haphazard letter heights. The case mixing. The double ™ signs. Agonizing to behold.
After forcing us to stare at it for 15 long years every time we opened our Gmail, their design team has done a rather nice update that kept the only good thing about the original logotype: the primary color scheme + green to show they don't follow rules.
The original Gmail logo made it abundantly clear they had no interest in the rules… of basic design.
Google's little rollout video did not go over well, with many haters complaining that the uniformity of their new app icons made it hard to tell which was which.
Paul Zana has a pretty good analysis:
I agree with most of his points. Thoughts? Comments?
Image: Google
