Google Chat is Google’s business messaging service, part of the Google Workspace suite alongside Gmail, Calendar, Drive and Meet. Its visual identity has evolved through two distinct phases: a green icon introduced with the 2020 Workspace rebrand, and a four-color redesign rolled out in late 2023.
Design and History
Google Chat began as Hangouts Chat, an enterprise messaging product for G Suite customers. In April 2020, Google removed the Hangouts brand from its business offering, renaming Hangouts Chat to Google Chat and Hangouts Meet to Google Meet.[1]
Later that year, Google rebranded G Suite as Google Workspace and introduced new four-color icons for Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Meet.[2] Google Chat received an updated icon at the same time, but it remained green rather than adopting the multi-color treatment used by other Workspace apps.[3] The new Chat icon used message chat bubbles in place of the previous format @ logo.[4] The green color was widely interpreted as a nod to Hangouts, helping users recognize the transition from the older service.[4][5]
In November 2023, Google announced a new icon for Google Chat as part of a broader user experience update. The company stated that the new icon “has a cohesive look with other popular Workspace products and reflects the central role of business messaging and collaboration in Workspace.”[6] The rollout began November 9, 2023 for Rapid Release domains and extended over 15 days, with Scheduled Release domains following from December 4, 2023.[7] The icon began appearing on Android in December 2023.[8]
Meaning and Symbolism
The 2023 Google Chat icon is described in a US Patent and Trademark Office filing as “a hollow multi-colored square ‘speech bubble’ with three rounded corners and a flattened upper right corner.” The filing details the color arrangement: the flattened upper right corner is red, the left and upper sides are formed by a blue line followed by a dark blue square, the right side and bottom are formed by green rounded lines followed by a dark green square, and a yellow line appears at the top of the rectangle.[3]
Green remains the predominant color in the new icon, followed by blue and yellow, with only a small amount of red.[8] The design features two chat bubbles, one inside the other, with the inner bubble formed by negative space.[9] The green dominance was noted by observers as a possible homage to Hangouts, the service Google Chat replaced.[10]
The earlier 2020 icon showed two overlapping conversation bubbles in dark green, a design that visually linked the app to its predecessor, Google Hangouts.[5]
Typography and Design
Google Chat uses a purely iconographic logo with no accompanying wordmark. The 2023 redesign brought the icon in line with the four-color style used across other Google Workspace logos.[10] The new icon also introduced updated Themed and status bar icons for Android, with the Themed icon using notably thick outlines compared to other Workspace apps.[8]
Logo Index is an independent educational archive covering logos, visual identities and graphic design history. All trademarks and brand assets remain the property of their respective owners.
