Google Sites’ New Logo: Comparing the Old and New Designs

What the new Google Sites logo actually is

The current Google Sites logo uses the same Google Workspace product-icon system as Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides. It keeps the familiar Google four-color palette: blue, red, yellow and green. The mark is a rounded square or tile containing a simplified site-page symbol. Unlike the earlier standalone wordmark-plus-icon treatment, the new asset is designed to work as a compact app icon and as a small inline product identifier inside the Google interface.

Old and new compared

Design criterion|Old Google Sites logo|New Google Sites logo

Overall shape|Text-heavy combination of a page glyph and product name|Unified tile or badge with a condensed page motif

Color treatment|Multicolor glyph with less strict tile contrast|Four Google colors placed on a contained background for stronger contrast

Typography role|Prominent wordmark carried much of the identity|Icon-first system; wordmark is secondary or absent at small sizes

Spacing and balance|More open composition around the page symbol|Tighter internal geometry built for grid alignment with other Workspace icons

Scalability|Legibility declined at browser-tab or favicon sizes|Clearer at small sizes because of reduced detail and a filled background

Geometry and readability

The new mark reduces the number of visual elements and places them inside a consistent container. This makes the silhouette recognizable when the asset is scaled down. The old design relied on finer line work and a longer wordmark, which became less distinct in dense navigation menus, mobile toolbars or favicon contexts.

At typical working sizes, the new tile maintains a stronger figure-ground relationship because the page symbol sits against a filled background rather than floating on white or transparent space. The color areas are also larger, which helps distinguish the product from other blue-heavy Google icons at a glance.

Color and spacing changes

The redesign keeps Google blue as the dominant color, with red, yellow and green used as secondary accents. The main difference is distribution: the new logo concentrates the accent colors into fewer, heavier shapes. That gives the asset more consistent contrast on both light and dark interfaces. The old version spread smaller color accents across a more detailed symbol, which could look muddy when compressed.

Spacing has also been normalized. The new mark is optically centered inside the tile, and the internal gaps are wide enough to survive low-resolution rendering. The old lockup had looser spacing between the icon and wordmark, which was useful for a full product lockup but less practical as an app-style identifier.

Practical implications for vector use

If you are working with vector logo assets, the new design is generally easier to edit because it uses fewer isolated shapes and a simpler container. The old version may require more cleanup if you are separating the glyph from the wordmark or rebuilding the mark from an older file. However, a vector file with a modern Google Sites-style tile is not proof of permission. Availability of an asset does not by itself license reuse outside Google's brand guidelines.

For most product-adjacent or educational use, the new badge-style asset is the safer visual choice because it matches the current Workspace family and scales cleanly. The older lockup may still be appropriate if you are documenting the product's visual history or comparing legacy branding, but it will look inconsistent next to current Google product icons.

Conclusion

The new Google Sites logo is best understood as a move from a wordmark-led identity to an icon-led Workspace identity. Its main advantages are better scalability, stronger contrast and closer visual alignment with other Google products. The old logo remains relevant mainly for historical comparison. Choose the current tile-based asset for current interface or product reference work, and use the older version only when the context explicitly requires the legacy branding.