Gmail Logo Was a Rush Job With Two Totally Different Fonts

We've probably all left things to the last second, only to rush out a solution to whatever task we had been assigned with varying degrees of success. However, it might surprise you that the Gmail logo is the perfect example of how leaving things to the last minute doesn't have to mean a sloppy, terrible result. In fact, sometimes the rushed solution is good enough to last forever. You were likely also oblivious to the fact that the logo contains two completely different fonts.

The Verge reports that Google Product Designer Kevin Fox recently took to Quora to answer the question, "Who designed the Google logo?" His response revealed the two facts above, along with the fact that the logo was designed by Dennis Hwang, who at the time was doing almost all of the Google Doodles, as well as a fair amount of logos.

"The logo was designed literally the night before the product launched. We were up very late and Sergey and I went down to his cube to watch him make it," he said. "The initial version used the same font as the Google logo (Catull), but Catull has a very awkward 'a', so Dennis decided to use Catull for the 'G' to tie the brand to Google, then cast the others in a cleaner sans-serif (Myriad Pro, if I recall correctly)."

There you have it.

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Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.