Mind Tricks and Marketing
A lesson in logo design.
Our brains are amazing. Sometimes they do things we don't understand. They make associations and connections without us consciously thinking about it. Mine was playing a trick on me the other day, at least that is what I thought. After looking into it more, I wonder if it was just a marketing strategy.
I kept getting the image of the Gerber baby logo in my head, while I was reading the Google Search Central website for info about increasing website visibility on the web. Then I realized that the small logo in the corner of the page in my peripheral vision was causing this. After directly looking at the Google logo I saw why it kept popping the Gerber baby logo in my head. They are both round blue logos with a white face in the middle. But I am not sure why my brain was making this visual connection. Was it because I am a loyal Gerber brand customer, Google was trying to make a subconscious statement, it was just a coincidence, both used common graphic design principles?
First let's compare the logos, both of which use the color blue; Gerber uses darker blue and Google has a lighter blue. The proportion of the blue circle to the face are identical in both and the size of the eyes and distance between them and the mouth are the same even though their location in the circle is different. Each has large eyes, which humans naturally find cute, and the spiky hair on both is an interesting similarity as well. The logo on the Google website did not have Google written under it but it was just to the right of it. Our brains can associate their names and imagine the Google name under the logo. We can make the connection between the names because both obviously start with a capital G and they have six letters with similar shapes and heights.
So why was this visual connection between these logos being made in my brain?
Is it because I am loyal Gerber brand customer? Maybe my brain was seeing the Gerber baby instead of the Google robot because my brain is way more familiar with that logo and saw the similarities between them. I did buy lots of Gerber brand items when my kids were little including clothes, blankets, toys, utensils and of course baby food. This was the first time I had noticed the Google robot logo, so it was unfamiliar to me.
Was it intentional? Maybe Google purposely made their logo similar to Gerber, trying to make us subconsciously make the connection to a trustworthy safe brand 71 years its senior.
Do you believe in coincidences? Since art is derived from art, maybe that is what it is, a coincidence. Our brains use what they know and have seen to come up with "new" ideas and art. Even AI does the same thing, it takes other pieces of art and combines them to make something new. Maybe it was just caused by the randomness of the universe.
Maybe it is just good graphic design principles at work. You can probably think of numerous famous brands with blue circular logos: AT&T, HP, Volkswagen, Link-In, NASA, GE, PBS, Pillsbury. Circles are common for logos; wax seals, state and federal seals, coins are all circles conveying trust, unity and wholeness. Color psychology is a whole area of study about how colors affect people's feelings and emotions and is used in graphic design principles. Blue subconsciously relates, again, to trustworthiness and it is calming and friendly. Interestingly, the color blue tends to be used for technology (see the previous list) and children related brands (Graco, Carter's, Chicco, Hasbro, The Children's Place, PBS Kids, Disney).
Or maybe this visual connection being made in my brain is something I have not thought of? In reality it is probably a combination of all of the above.
Jessica Dale has a Bachelor of Architecture and with her strong background in art and design has been doing graphic design jobs for Growing Business Solutions, Plains Tribune and others over the past 20 years.