Android ditches its sweet naming system and embraces a
more accessible logo design.
Google's mobile operating system, Android, has been
given a minty fresh logo redesign and a new naming system with the launch of
Android 10. Leading the redesign are new colors for the Android robot and brand
name (above), which sees Google doing away with the sweet-based system.
The new-look Android bot that will now be gracing
the best Android tablets and your favorite Android apps is
now a minty green color. Google says the shade is more modern and – crucially –
more accessible than the previous lime color.
"It’s a small change, but we found the green was
hard to read, especially for people with visual impairments," said
Android's VP of product management, Sameer Samat.
"The logo is often paired with colors that can
make it hard to see – so we came up with a new set of color combinations that
improve contrast." As well as changing color, the body of the Android has
been removed from the logo. Watch how the brand has developed below.
More importantly, Google has made a permanent addition
to the wordmark: The Android name will now always be
accompanied by the bug-droid robot head. You'll no longer see the wordmark
without the head somewhere adjacent, be it directly to the
right (as shown above), directly above (shown below) or somewhere in the vicinity
if put in a larger branding context.
And that's significant, because the head is the only
part of the robot that remains in this redesign. Yes, the robot's body is gone
for good.
Now that the robot is going to show up everywhere as
a permanent fixture of the Android brand, it's been reduced to just a head to
fit more seamlessly in a logo context. In the process, the head received tweaks
to its curve radius, as well as eye and antenna placements, which are then
matched in the curves and placement of the "android" letters beside
it. Together, it works well and feels like a cohesive unit.
Because the body is now gone, Google is making the
Android head more expressive and anthropomorphic. Much like we saw with the
last couple Android releases, you'll likely see the Android head with eyes and
antennas in different positions to evoke different emotions. Google intends to
be extra playful with the robot head to compensate for no
longer having the whole body to move around. When I met with members of
Google's design team prior to the announcement they showed several ideas they
were working on to bring the robot head to even more places both digitally, in
branding and marketing, and physically, such as around the Google campus.
For those who still wish to use the full robot, Google
keeping the previous brand's assets available under the
same Creative
Commons license as before — so we're bound to still see interesting
uses for the old version of the full robot for years to come. The distinction
here is that there's no new version of the full robot with the
new color scheme; it's been reduced to a head as part of the new logo.
Up until now, Android releases have been named after
sweet treats in alphabetical order, including Android KitKat and Android Oreo.
Although these names were appetizing, they caused confusion with the public as
some people didn't know which version was the most recent. A straightforward
number system has been introduced to make things much clearer.
A rebrand that looks good and works better than before
is a winning combination, so hats off to Google for giving Android a stylish
and practical redesign that will benefit its users.
The updated logo will start rolling out in the coming
weeks with the final release of Android 10. Find out more about the new logo
in this blog post from Google.
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