The "g" Kagi logo is confusing. This is a serious branding problem.

macro

This thread is quite something—and frankly, I’m surprised it’s even a question.

Yes, it is a problem when your product logo uses the exact same key letter as not only your closest competitor, but also Google—one of the most recognizable brands in the world. For people like me (over 30), the lowercase “g” is even more confusing.
The burger chain Yumy using an “M” is a good example. I genuinely don’t understand how some people can say, “Well, it’s not uppercase, and it’s not the same color.” Come on. Out of all the possible logo designs in the world, you chose a single letter—the same one used by the most iconic brand in your space, and also your main competitor?

Any legal jurisdiction won’t interpret this as “cool branding.” It will be viewed as deliberate brand parasitism—an attempt to capitalize on someone else’s identity.

brucegr

I agree that the use of a 'g' for a competitor to google is breathtakingly dumb. I always have to do a double-take, because of my muscle memory from the old days, to make sure I'm looking at the right results. I also think this brand differentiation dilution hurts their competitiveness.

Temanor

markmcb I think the "g" is a good logo. It is recognisable due to the unique font. If it were the "K" it would be less clear, as that letter doesn't stand out in the font.
The "g" also looks like an eye glass, which makes sense as it is a search engine.
Google does not own the letter "g", and I don't think they are similar either.
Very rarely do you ever see only the letter without any other branding (like colour), so I don't think people will be mistaking them.
Doggo makes for a good mascot, but I don't think it would be as good as a logo, as it doesn't look that good when it's just a small icon.

markmcb

Temanor Yes, you've made these points. I'm just telling you what I see. I see google every time I look at the favicon in my tabs, and that will always be a weird product experience for me.

You know, Google has an AI product named "Gemini." Care to guess why they don't brand it with a capital "G"?

Let's ask Gemini! ...

What doesn't Google just use a beautifully styled capital G to brand Gemini?

Avoiding Over-Association with Google Search: The capital "G" is strongly associated with Google's search engine and its broader corporate identity.

... interesting, don't you think?

RoxyRoxyRoxy

markmcb I mean I can make AI defend Kagi's 'g' so I'm not sure how strong that argument is 🙂
And FWIW that response doesn't even really make sense, the font used in Gemini's full logotype:

is arguably just as strongly associated with Google's corporate identity. It even has the exact same G in it!

markmcb

RoxyRoxyRoxy Yes, it's in the name, but the 4-point star icon what they use for recognition. They use "G" in various ways to associate products with Google, and they also tend to reuse their color scheme, but the primary branding of their products lean heavily on distinct icons, e.g., if you open Gemini in a tab, you'll see the star, not the G. If you look for Gemini in Kagi's assisstant you see the star. Etc.

Dustin

Google stopped using a lowercase serif ‘g’ for their logo in 2015. A decade ago. Maybe it’s time to move on … 🫠

markmcb

Dustin as already noted, big brands don't fade so easily. You seem to imply a decade is so long ago as to not be relevant. Someone who was 30 in 2015 had a decade and a half exposure to this 'g' brand. A product they probably used daily those 15 years. That 'g' is burned in for them.

Dustin

markmcb technically it was 3 distinctly different serif lowercase gs for a little less than 7 years. The vast majority of time it’s been an uppercase G completely distinct from the Kagi icon

If you want to get pedantic, that is. 🤓

macro

Dustin

I don’t know how old you are, but yesterday, as I was receiving some friends home (30 to 40 years old), I received a notification on my phone about this convo and decided to make a quick test.
I showed them the kagi icon in the tab bar while hiding kagi’s full logo, and asked « what is it ». Spoiler: all of them thought it was google.

markmcb

macro You hit the key point. All the thoughtful insights and opinions in this thread don't really matter compared to recognition in the marketplace. You can go step further and test pre-visual recognition, "in terms of internet search, what does the letter 'g' make you think of?" The answer will be Google every time.

Boomkop3

I'm not that old, but I have been online for a while. The kagi favicon looks like the old google favicon but cut off.

And kagi just so happens to do the exact same thing with the position and style of their g:

To be fair, up to about a decade ago google did have some decency to it

Peter

I feel like this is actually a good thing. Google has gone downhill lately, so Kagi could be seen as a return to the old Google...

Boomkop3

Peter My mom did say that kagi is "what google used to be". I'm a bit too young to remember that time clearly

bert

If Kagi wants to use the dog, they not only need to make it their favicon but also lean really hard into the dog for their branding overall. For instance, the dog is not visible anywhere on the search results page. I think it will also be a pretty big lift — not impossible, though — to make the dog come to represent Kagi the way I currently think of the lowercase g as doing so. I think the comparison to GitHub’s Octocat is apt — a funky animal that doesn't really represent anything in particular, but which the brand has chosen for its mascot.

Here is a heavily pared-down version of the default dog logo that I think does work ok as a favicon. I'm removed a lot of the smaller elements that become tricky at small sizes.

sashk

Kagi's favicon is small letter g. I 2007-201x Google used to have same letter as a favicon. Every time I see Kagi's favicon, my brain thinks I'm using google. I cannot find Kagi tabs because of this.

To mee all of these tabs seem to be google related (sorry): {three tabs, two of which are Kagi, one is Google}

Would like to have an option to select a different favicon:

predefined different letters
different color
custom favicon
bonus point: different Kagi properties should have a slightly different icon (color?)

I would select a different icon for Kagi. Perhaps small or capital K can be used; different colors for search/maps/translate, etc?

alexchadwick

Would probably mess with branding consistency (ie someone looking over and seeing you are using Kagi but the logo is different). Different colors are also already used for assistant and I imagine will be rolled to others eventually.

[deleted]

alexchadwick Would probably mess with branding consistency (ie someone looking over and seeing you are using Kagi but the logo is different).

"Brand consistency"?! It's the OP's private device, "brand" has nothing to do with it...

edword

Vouch for a minor rebrand. Not a fan of the g & while it’s a good logo, just doesn’t match the brand. I’m gonna work on some ideas & post here later!

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