Doodles are the spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo in celebration of holidays, anniversaries and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists who have helped shape history.
Where did the idea for doodles come from?
In 1998 Larry and Sergey, Google’s founders, placed a stick figure drawing behind the second ‘o’ in the word Google as a message to users that they were “out of the office” attending a music and art festival. From there the idea of decorating our logo to mark cultural moments was born. Users really enjoyed this quirky change to the clean Google homepage. As a result a turkey was added on Thanksgiving in 1998, two pumpkins for the ‘o’s appeared for Halloween in October of 1999 as well as a few others.
After two years of playing around with the logo on special occasions, Larry and Sergey asked webmaster Dennis Hwang to create a doodle for Bastille Day in France. Soon after he was appointed the chief doodler and doodles became more frequent occurrences on the homepage. Users started seeing doodles for more holidays and starting in 2003 doodles for people’s birthdays. The first being Monet in 2001, Picasso in 2002 and then Michelangelo and Albert Einstein six months later. Since then the amount of doodles and the variety of subjects have grown to celebrate a much wider array of events, holidays, anniversaries and birthdays of some of history’s greats.
The aesthetic design of doodles has developed as the frequency increased and subject matter widened. What started as basic drawings has now grown into elaborate and detailed illustrations. In the past few years some doodles have started to become interactive incorporating HTML5 Canvas and JavaScript. Mediums have expanded to digital animation, video, photography, set design, origami, growing flowers and carving pumpkins! What’s next? Only time will tell!
Who designs the doodles?
The doodle team has grown quite a bit over the years from one webmaster doodling on the side to a full time team of professionally trained illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists as well as some incredibly talented engineers.
How many doodles have been created?
Since 1998 there have been over 2,000 (and counting!) doodles on our homepages around the world. You can see them all at www.google.com/doodles or catch one on your Google homepage... You have to check each day because they come as a surprise!
Who chooses the subjects for doodles?
Ideas come from all over including Google employees and users like you! The team meets weekly for brainstorming sessions but four times a year does an official review of all the ideas to come up with a schedule of about 90 doodles.
What’s the process for how a doodle is created?
Once the schedule has been created the actual doodling process begins with each doodler picking ones they want to work on. For local doodles running in a specific country (ex: France, Japan, Russia) the doodler is paired with a Googler in that country’s office. The local Googler helps advise on cultural relevancy and the doodler takes care of the design. Each doodle will go through rounds of revisions before being shared on the homepage. Feedback helps in its development and come from the local Googler as well as being reviewed in the team’s weekly creative review sessions. Once it’s finished, it’s prepared for launch, translations are added (ever notice that when you put your mouse on the doodle some text comes up) and then it’s off to a homepage near you!
I have a doodle idea. Can I submit it?
The doodle team is always excited to hear ideas... The more the merrier! You can email them to proposals@google.com.
Is there a place where I can see every doodle ever made?
Yes! You can always visit www.google.com/doodles to see all those that have run around the world since 1998. It’s constantly updated as new doodles are featured on the homepage so come back often!
