Visual Design for Google

Google’s visual redesign identity project was inspired by the CEO Larry Page in 2011 to enhance the company’s main products identity including search, maps, mail and software suite especially app icons and the UI elements. The project was then started in January 2012 leads by their senior graphic designer Roger Oddone, art director Christopher Bettig and with their designers team.

The are simple, modern, friendly and sometimes quirky. Product icons are highly simplified, exaggerated and caricatured in nature so that they are appropriate for use at small size.

Let’s see how the design dept of Creative Lab behind this internet giant develop and redesign the User Interface (UI) of Google’s visual assets for their products and become guidelines for their product’s UI designers, app developers and their vendors. The style then being trendy all over the net.

Redesign Process

 

 

The Design Principles

The designs should be simple, straight forward and user friendly, so they are several rules to be made clear.

Good Geometric Shape – the more geometrical shapes used, the better and make it as precise as possible.

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Front Facing – front view and symmetrical shapes always communicate better for user compared to isometric 3D style.

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Flat & Shadow – flat design looks clean & beautiful, light and fast loading.

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Pixel Perfect – as these designs are tiny and for screen devices, always make sure the pixels are in their grid to keep them perfect for HD or retina screen.

 

Source: Google Visual Assets Guidelines P1 | Google Visual Assets Guidelines P2
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Visual Design for Google seems getting smatter and lighter. We might probably see Google start transforming their visual assets into SVG near future..