Favicon
Google's favicon until 2008 was a blue, uppercase "G" on white background. It was framed by a border with a red, blue and a green side. In 2008 - 2009 a new version was introduced. It showed the lowercase "g" from Google's official logo, colored in white and originally was intended to be a part of a larger set of icons developed for better scalability on mobile devices. This version included background areas colored in red, green, blue and yellow. It was based on a design by André Resende, a computer science undergraduate student at the University of Campinas in Brazil. He submitted it for a contest launched by Google in June 2008 to receive favicon submissions. From the Official Google Blog: "His placement of a white 'g' on a color-blocked background was highly recognizable and attractive, while seeming to capture the essence of Google". The current version, introduced in August 2012, still shows the small letter "g", but has a simple, light blue background colour.
Read more about this topic: Google Logo