Google Quietly Redesigned its ‘G’ Icon

Google has quietly redesigned the big ‘G’ icon it uses for its Google app for iOS and Android. The change, which was first spotted by 9to5Google, is happening 10 years after Google first introduced the circular G icon that mixes the same four colors used by the Google logo.

Compared to the previous version of the logo that showed the red, yellow, green, and blue segments in solid blocks, the new G logo introduces a subtle gradient between all colored segments. This new design is currently available on both iOS and Android versions of the Google app, but it’s not showing up yet in the favicon for Google Search.

If Google has yet to officially communicate about this change, the company’s annual I/O developer conference is right around the corner, and we may soon see this logo in more places. It will also be interesting to see if Google starts refreshing the rest of its logos with the same gradient-based design, including its full six-letter logo.

If you’re interested in iconography, you may have noticed that OpenAI also redesigned its logo earlier this year, but the change was also very subtle. As for Microsoft, the company redesigned its Copilot logo last year, and the latest version also uses a gradient-based design. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app even added a “M365” logo on top of it to distinguish it (or not?) from the Microsoft Copilot app for consumers.