Overall: There are a lot of components to this. I believe that two of them—sound and interactivity—are totally new to the Google logo, but I’d love to be corrected on that if I’m wrong, and that another (an absence, really) is new for this modern period of the Google Logo, that is: the logo is not clickable. It will not divulge its origins through clicks; only through cursor hover. This is a huge oversight, especially because the ostensible reason for this click-omission is to enable the click to start the game, so it’s more truly a click-replacement, but this isn’t necessary because of the really neat “Insert coin” button that is far more design-worthy, is clearly a more enjoyable pathway, and ought to be pushed as hard as possible. Google basically built us a beautiful golden gateway through a hedgerow, beckoned us to enter, and then tossed us a dogshit-covered spade and suggested we could also dig our way over to the garden instead, if we wanted to, no skin of their back. The hover-divulging also means we have to read from that horrible pale yellow ribbon box that pops up, including all the eye-searing legal symbolics from Bandai, and also who knew that PAC-MAN is supposed to be capitalized? and who really wanted to know that? I’m also disappointed that a game will commence automatically if you stall on the homepage. Again: the “Insert coin” button is there, trust we’ll find it, trust the innate funneling of the trademark Google simplicity to lead us toward pleasure. Always trust a funnel.

But this logo is a huge success despite these odd interface oversights. Its success is too obvious for characterization—but, for instance, I bet you played a game or two while reading this post. I did. And any further explanation of its pleasure would be moronic. As a lovely topper, if you click on “iGoogle” on the top right, you’ll notice that a special smaller logo was devised for the smaller Google logo spots. Brilliant.

Letter verisimilitude: Not a lot to play with, considering the constraints of the PAC-MAN board (simple dimensionality, blockiness quotient high, etc.) and they managed to surprise by using the ghost-box as the “g” instead of its far more apparent usage as an “o.” Well done with little world-flexibility.

***

GOOG out of GOOGLE

Overall: This surprised me. The first thing I thought was cobwebs, and then I faintly tasted berries in my mouth and I thought I was seeing a vision of space travel when we will keep our berries in a mercury-like preservative goo from which we can pick them at will as these goo-balls float about our get-to-there-from-here-pods. But as the dust cleared from this initial visual entry, and my eyes and brains settled down to seeing the vases, I found I was not frowning. Very happily! I’m so glad that Google kept it simple; others want to turn Mother’s Day into a day for breast cancer awareness (among many other noble causes), but there’s something about retrofitting rationales to holidays which seems so Puritan to me. Mothers Day is about mothers.

Letter verisimilitude: This is quite a stretch. The vases might as well be shaped like letters.

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GO out of GOOGLE

Overall: Unfortunately, the dancers’ contortions and the color palate makes this look more Haunted Mansion than Swan Lake. The low-hanging moon is the clinching detail; I’m spooked more than delighted. Weirdly, the regular spacing of the background dancers and their trippy motion lines reminds me of the anime animation trope when a manic character is seen performing several different tasks in the same room, alternating among the stations for a couple seconds each.

Letter verisimilitude: Like it a lot! Is the G throwing her ballet shoe in the top arc? It’s a great little detail. This is also a nice example of fortuitous form Google logos: the dancers just happen to be in the right positions, whereas if the ballet troupe were replaced by Pilobolus, we’d know that the lettering were intentional.

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GO out of GOOGLE