Google has had many logos since its renaming from BackRub. The first logo was created by Sergey Brin using GIMP. The logo underwent a major revision on September 1, 2015. The previous Google logo was designed by Ruth Kedar, and is a wordmark based on the Catull typeface, an old style serif typeface designed by Gustav Jaeger for the Berthold Type Foundry in 1982. The company also includes various modifications or humorous features, such as cartoon modifications of their logo for use on holidays, birthdays of famous people, and major events, such as the Olympics. These special logos, some designed by Dennis Hwang, have become known as Google Doodles. Google subsidiary YouTube has also featured some custom logos to highlight special events occurring on the site.
Ruth Kedar (Hebrew: רות קדר; born 27 January 1955) is an artist and designer, best known for designing the Google logo. Larry Page and Sergey Brin were looking at designers to design their logo and website and Kedar was asked to present them with some preliminary design ideas. They liked her approach and design style and she was hired to design both. The design was accepted due to its playful design, the customized Catull typeface and unique visual expression. Born in Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, she moved to Israel where she received a degree in Architecture from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. She moved to the US to attend the Stanford University Master's Program in Design.Her master's thesis was on playing card design, and she was commissioned by Adobe Systems to be one of the designers of the Adobe Deck, a promotional deck of playing cards produced in 1988. She went on to design the award-winning Analog Deck and Duolog Deck. She was a consultant art professor at the Stanford Art Department from 1988 to 1999. It was while at Stanford that she was commissioned to design the Google logo. Kedar is one of the founders of Art.Net, where she has been displaying her online art studio since 1994. She has been awarded several design awards and her artwork has been shown internationally.
