Users of search engine giant Google should be familiar with the company’s use of logo design variants to celebrate and/or take note of holidays and calendar specific events. Cataloging the various Google logos has intrigued designers and non-designers alike since the inception of the practice in 1999. Logos range from the usual; Christmas and New Years, to the more obscure – artist Edvard Munch’s birthday (December 12). There’s been a little bit of a commotion this Memorial Day, as Google chose not to mark the day with a themed logo, and visitors to the home page were greeted by the generic multi-colored text version of the company’s brand. Some pro-military types questioned the fact that despite the USA’s engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan, and seemingly ignoring US military losses in conflicts gone by, Google chose to remain strangely visually silent on the national holiday to honor war dead and didn’t create a Memorial Day search engine logo design. Google’s official stance on the practice was issued by e-mail -
Thank you for your note. We appreciate your interest in seeing a Memorial Day Google logo. If we were to commemorate this holiday, we’d want to express reverence; however, as Google’s special logos tend to be lighthearted in nature, this would be a particularly challenging design. We wouldn’t want to create a graphic that could be interpreted as disrespectful in any way.
We have a long list of holidays that we’d like to celebrate in the future. We have to balance this rotating calendar with the need to maintain the consistency of the Google homepage. We really value your feedback regarding the Google logo, and please be assured that we’re actively pursuing ways in which we can acknowledge Memorial Day and other such occasions in the future.
Regards,
The Google Team
Would seem like a perfectly plausible answer unless previous logos didn’t celebrate similarly themed events from around the world, all with sombre recognition of war dead. There’s the logo for ANZAC Day (Australia’s version of Memorial Day) as well as poppy emblazoned logos for the Canadian and British Remembrance Day. Zombietime, a right-wingish political blog has even started a Google logo competition to create themed designs that can be submitted to Google for next year’s Memorial Day. Google watchers chime in here, while some think that critics should get a grip…
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Tags: politics
