Ruth Kedar: The Designer Who Created the Google Logo

Ruth Kedar is the graphic designer who created the original Google logo. An artist and former Stanford design professor, she designed the wordmark Google used from 1999 until 2015. It became one of the most recognised logos in the world, and the story of how it came about is a small masterclass in branding.

This article covers who Ruth Kedar is, how she designed the logo concept by concept, the typeface behind it, what else she has worked on, and what brands can take from one of the most successful logos ever made.

Who is Ruth Kedar?

Ruth Kedar is a Brazilian-born artist and designer, born on 27 January 1955 in Campinas, São Paulo. Her path into design crossed three continents.

She moved to Israel, where she earned a degree in architecture from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, before relocating to the United States to study for a master's in design at Stanford University. That mix of disciplines, the structural thinking of architecture and the visual craft of design, shaped how she approached her work.

Before Google, Kedar built a career in design that included acclaimed playing-card design (including the Adobe Deck) and academic work, and she served as a visiting art professor in Stanford's art department in the years leading up to 1999. One lesser-known detail rounds out the picture: she holds a fifth-dan (Godan) black belt in Aikido and has taught the martial art, a discipline built on balance and harmony, principles that echo through her design.

How Ruth Kedar designed the Google logo

In 1998, while at Stanford, Kedar was introduced to two PhD students building an early-stage search engine: Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They were looking for someone to design their logo and website, asked her for some preliminary ideas, and liked her approach enough to hire her.

Her first concept was strikingly different from what we know today: a predominantly black wordmark set in Adobe Garamond, a classic serif chosen to evoke timeless authority. Her brief, as she understood it, wasn't just to make something modern; it was to understand what the company was trying to be.

From there the concepts evolved. She explored overlapping “o”s, magnifying glasses as a metaphor for search, and crosshairs to signal precision and accuracy. Some of these literal, search-specific ideas were striking, but ultimately they were judged too on-the-nose and too complex.

The decision that defined the logo was to drop the search-specific iconography altogether. Page and Brin's company was going to become far more than a search engine, and a mark tied tightly to a magnifying glass would have aged badly. Stripping that away gave the brand room to grow, which is exactly what it did.

The final logo used a customised version of the Catull typeface, an old-style serif originally designed by Gustav Jaeger for the Berthold foundry in 1982. It's worth being precise here, because this is the most common factual mix-up about the logo: the early concept used Adobe Garamond, but the logo Google actually launched was built on customised Catull. Kedar has spoken about loving how Catull nodded to traditional typefaces while feeling lighter and more precise, bridging the analogue past and the digital future, with the bright primary colours adding the playfulness.

The original Google logo: key facts

Ruth Kedar's design philosophy & approach

A few principles run through Kedar's logo work, and they're worth drawing out because they apply far beyond Google.

The first is to understand the brand's mission before touching the design. Kedar treated the brief as a question about what the company wanted to become, not just a request to make a logo look nice. The second is simplicity and timelessness: the winning design worked precisely because it wasn't clever or trend-chasing. The third, and perhaps the most instructive, is designing a mark with room to grow, resisting the temptation to spell out exactly what the company did in 1999, so the logo could still fit the company in 2015 and beyond. Her architecture background shows in all of this: structure first, decoration second.

What else has Ruth Kedar designed?

Ruth Kedar is best known, by a wide margin, for the Google logo, and it would be misleading to pretend otherwise. Beyond it, her work includes award-winning playing-card design and her academic work and teaching at Stanford. Her background spans architecture and graphic design, which informs the structured, considered approach visible in the Google work.

Is Ruth Kedar still at Google? (her legacy)

No. Kedar designed Google's early logo but was not a permanent in-house designer, and she is an independent artist and designer. When Google refreshed its logo in 2015, replacing the serif wordmark with a cleaner sans-serif (Product Sans), that work was carried out by Google's own brand team, not by Kedar.

Her legacy is the mark itself. It defined Google's identity through the company's entire rise from Stanford project to global giant, and it set the playful, colourful foundation that made traditions like the Google Doodle feel natural. A logo that lasts more than 15 years in an industry that changes by the month is a rare thing.

What brands can learn from the Google logo

Two lessons stand out, and both are practical.

The first is knowing when branding needs to evolve, and when it doesn't. Kedar's mark was deliberately not tied to a single product, which is why it survived the company's expansion far beyond search. The second is the power of a simple, flexible mark: clarity and restraint gave the logo room to grow with the brand, rather than locking it into 1999.

Thinking about your own logo or rebrand? See how Design Cloud's designers approach brand identity.

Frequently asked questions

Who designed the Google logo?

The original Google logo was designed by Ruth Kedar, a graphic designer and former Stanford art professor. She was introduced to founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin in the late 1990s and created the serif wordmark that Google used from 1999 until its 2015 redesign. Google's in-house team has handled subsequent logo changes.

What font is the original Google logo?

Google's original logo used a customised version of Catull, an old-style serif typeface, which gave the wordmark a classic feel with a modern, approachable twist. Ruth Kedar's earlier concepts explored other faces such as Adobe Garamond before the Catull-based design was chosen.

How long was Ruth Kedar's Google logo used?

Ruth Kedar's serif Google logo was in use for around a decade and a half, from May 1999 until September 2015, with only minor tweaks along the way. In 2015 Google replaced it with a cleaner sans-serif wordmark designed in-house, though Kedar's version defined the brand for most of its rise.

Is Ruth Kedar still Google's designer?

No. Ruth Kedar created Google's early logo but was not a permanent in-house designer, and the 2015 redesign was carried out by Google's own brand team. She is an independent artist and designer best known for that original wordmark.

What is Ruth Kedar known for besides the Google logo?

Ruth Kedar is best known for the Google logo, but her wider work includes award-winning playing-card design and a career teaching design at Stanford. Her background spans architecture and graphic design, which informs her structured, considered approach.

A logo built to last

The original Google logo endured because it was designed with restraint: simple enough to scale, flexible enough to grow with the company, and rooted in a clear understanding of what the brand wanted to become. That's the quiet skill behind Ruth Kedar's most famous piece of work.