Google Doodle

Not to be confused with Google Drawings.
The first ever Google Doodle celebrating Burning Man, which was used on August 30, 1998.

A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepage that is intended to celebrate holidays, events, achievements and people. The first Google Doodle was in honor of the Burning Man Festival of 1998,[1][2] and was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. Subsequent Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, until Page and Brin asked intern Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day in 2000. From that point onward, Doodles have been organized and published by a team of employees termed "Doodlers".[3]

Initially, Doodles were neither animated nor hyperlinked. They were simply images linked to the theme. Doodles increased in both frequency and complexity by the beginning of the 2010s, and in January 2010 the first animated Doodle was posted honoring Isaac Newton.[4] The first interactive Doodle appeared shortly thereafter celebrating Pac-Man,[5] and hyperlinks also began to be added to Doodles, usually linking to a search results page for the subject of the Doodle. By 2014, Google had published over 2,000 regional and international Doodles throughout its homepages,[6] often featuring guest artists, musicians and personalities.[7]

Google Doodles violate the long-accepted tenet of brand management that a logo should be respected and used correctly and consistently at all times. A constantly changing logo was thought to reduce brand equity. While this may be true of many brands, Google has successfully defied the orthodoxy; the Google logo has been noted for the constant interactive engagement that attracts the attention of the press and general public.[8]

Some users find the doodles annoying, citing the additional web traffic and consequent global server power wasted by transmitting the doodle for each user access. In response Google created an extension "No google doodle" designed to suppress the images but this has been found by many users to be ineffective in suppressing the doodles[9]

Overview

Artist and "Doodler" Jennifer Hom has designed many Doodles throughout the years[10]

As well as celebrating many well-known events and holidays, Google Doodles are known for celebrating several noted artists and scientists on their birthdays, including Andy Warhol, Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Rabindranath Tagore, Louis Braille, Ella Fitzgerald, Percival Lowell, Edvard Munch, Nikola Tesla, Béla Bartók, René Magritte, Norman Hetherington, John Lennon, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Dakhno, Robert Moog, Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, H. G. Wells, Freddie Mercury, Samuel Morse, Hans Christian Ørsted, Mahatma Gandhi, Dennis Gabor, Édith Piaf, Constantin Brâncuși, Antonio Vivaldi, Abdel Halim Hafez, Jules Verne, Leonhard Euler, and James Welch, among over 9,000 others.[11] The featuring of Lowell's logo design coincided with the launch of another Google product, Google Maps. Google doodles are also used to depict major events at Google, such as the company's own anniversary.[12] The celebration of historical events is another common topic of Google Doodles including a Lego brick design in celebration of the interlocking Lego block's 50th anniversary. Some Google Doodles are limited to Google's country-specific home pages while others appear globally.[13]

Interactive and video doodles

Google's interactive Pac-Man logo

In May 2010, on the 30th anniversary of the arcade game Pac-Man, Google unveiled worldwide their first interactive logo, created in association with Namco.[14] Anyone who visited Google could play Pac-Man on the logo, which featured the letters of the word "Google" on the Pac-Man maze. The logo also mimicked the sounds the original arcade game made. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was replaced with an "Insert Coin" button. Pressing this once enabled you to play the Pac-Man logo. Pressing it once more added a second player, Ms. Pac-Man, enabling two players to play at once, controlled using the W,A,S,D keys, instead of the arrows as used by Player 1. Pressing it for a third time performed an "I'm Feeling Lucky" search. It was then removed on May 23, 2010, initially replacing Pac-Man with the normal logo. Later on that day, Google released[15] a permanent Google Pac-Man site, due to the popular user demand for the playable logo.[15]

Since that time, Google has continued to post occasional interactive and video doodles, including but not limited to the following:

A G major scale being played on the Google Guitar

Common themes

For New Year 2014, Google created an animated image depicting dancing numbers

Since Google first celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday with a Doodle in 1998, many Doodles for holidays, events and other celebrations have recurred on an annual basis, including the following:

"Doodle 4 Google" competitions

Original Google "Doodler" employee Dennis Hwang at a Doodle 4 Google event in Beijing
Main article: Doodle 4 Google

Google holds competitions for school students to create their own Google doodles, referred to as "Doodle 4 Google".[26] Winning doodles go onto the Doodle 4 Google website, where the public can vote for the winner, who wins a trip to the Googleplex and the hosting of the winning doodle for 24 hours on the Google website.

The competition originated in the United Kingdom, and has since expanded to the United States and other countries. The competition was also held in Ireland in 2008.[27] Google announced a Doodle 4 Google competition for India in 2009[28] and the winning doodle was displayed on the Google India homepage on November 14. A similar competition held in Singapore based on the theme "Our Singapore" was launched in January 2010 and the winning entry was chosen from over 30,000 entries received. The winning design will be shown on Singapore's National Day on Google Singapore's homepage.[29] It was held again in 2015 in Singapore and was themed 'Singapore: The next 50 years'.

Controversy and criticism

On September 13, 2007, Google posted a doodle honoring author Roald Dahl on the anniversary of his birth. This date also happened to coincide with the first day of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, and Google was immediately criticized by some groups for this decision due to the fact that Dahl was anti-Israel. Google removed the Doodle by 2:00 p.m. that day, and there remains no evidence of its existence in Google's official Doodle archive to this date.[30][31] Google was also criticized for not featuring versions of the Google logo for American patriotic holidays such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day.[32] That year, Google featured a logo commemorating Veterans Day.[33]

On March 31, 2013, Google was criticized for posting a doodle celebrating American activist Cesar Chavez instead of Easter on their American homepage.[34] In 2014, Google received some criticism for failing to honor the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion with a Doodle and instead honoring a Japanese Go player.[35] In response to the criticism, Google deleted the logo and added a series of links to images of the invasion of Normandy.[35] Google was also criticized following a study indicating that the majority of doodle subjects were white men, and that not enough women or people of other ethnicities were celebrated. The company responded that the issue was being addressed.[36]

On May 19, 2016, Google honored Yuri Kochiyama, an Asian American activist, with a Doodle on its main U.S. homepage.[37][38][39] This choice was criticized due to some of Kochiyama's controversial opinions, such as an admiration for Osama bin Laden and Mao Zedong.[37][38][40] U.S. senator Pat Toomey called for a public apology from Google.[41] Google did not respond to any criticism, nor did they alter the presentation of the Doodle on their homepage or on the Doodle's dedicated page.[42]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Every year since 1999, Google has used a special international doodle as either one logo, or several interconnected logos, spanning at least the day of December 25 (sometimes beginning as early as December 20, and ending as late as December 27). Many of the logos have had winter themes, despite it being summer in the Southern Hemisphere, and some have had explicitly Christmas themes or themes relating to gift-giving. Google has rarely if ever used the word "Christmas" in relation to these Doodles, though multiple news sources have.[24][25] Google has used terminology including "season's greetings", "happy holidays", "'tis the season", "end of year", and "holiday series" to describe the Doodles.

References

  1. ↑ "Doodle 4 Google". Google.com. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Burning Man Festival". Google.com. August 30, 1998. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  3. ↑ "Meet the people behind the Google Doodles". The Guardian. April 12, 2014. Retrieved September 27, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Isaac Newton's birth marked by Google Doodle". The Telegraph. January 4, 2010. Retrieved September 30, 2014.
  5. ↑ Nelson, Randy (May 21, 2010). "Google celebrates Pac-Man's 30th anniversary with playable logo". Joystiq. Retrieved September 30, 2014.
  6. ↑ "Google blunder over D-Day doodle". BBC News. June 6, 2014. Retrieved September 30, 2014.
  7. ↑ "How Google made its Valentine's Day Doodle". Time Magazine. February 14, 2014. Retrieved September 30, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Google's Brand: Constant Change Is the Brand Constant". Merriam Associates. May 2, 2012. Archived from the original on September 24, 2016. Retrieved May 3, 2012.
  9. ↑ https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/webmasters/u-e6uJOFFwI;context-place=mydiscussions
  10. ↑ Barnett, Emma (February 19, 2013). "Creating a women's Google Doodle was too frightening". The Telegraph. Retrieved September 29, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Stress Cultlogos". Google. Retrieved August 14, 2009.
  12. ↑ Matthew Moore (September 27, 2009). "Googlle: Google releases misspelt logo to mark 11th anniversary". London: Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved September 27, 2009.
  13. ↑ "Google doodles a fresh beginning on New Year's Day". CNN-IBN. December 31, 2011. Retrieved December 31, 2011.
  14. ↑ Daniel Terdiman (May 21, 2010). "Google gets Pac-Man fever". Geek Gestalt. CNET. Retrieved December 24, 2010.
  15. 1 2 Mayer, Marissa (May 23, 2010). "Official Google Blog: PAC-MAN rules!". Googleblog.blogspot.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  16. ↑ "John Lennon's 70th Birthday". Google.com. October 8, 2010. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
  17. ↑ "Freddie Mercury's 65th Birthday". Google.com. September 5, 2011. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
  18. ↑ Germick, Ryan (April 15, 2011). "Official Google Blog: Lights, camera, doodle!". Googleblog.blogspot.com. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  19. ↑ Jemima Kiss (June 9, 2011). "Les Paul: Google's best doodle yet?". London: The Guardian. Retrieved June 9, 2011.
  20. ↑ Kathy CeceriEmail Author. "A Google Doodle for Alan Turing's 100th Birthday | GeekMom". Wired.com. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
  21. ↑ "Doctor Who's 50th Anniversary". Google.com. November 23, 2013. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  22. ↑ "155th Anniversary of the Pony Express". Google.com. April 14, 2015. Retrieved April 14, 2015.
  23. ↑ "Celebrating Ludwig van Beethoven's 245th Year". Google. Retrieved 17 December 2015.
  24. ↑ Feeney, Nolan (December 25, 2014). "Google's Christmas Doodle Feels Your Holiday Travel Pain". TIME. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  25. ↑ Jiwrajka, Shikhar (December 25, 2014). "Merry Christmas Google Doodle: 'Tis the Season latest doodle begins 'Happy Holidays' with an amusing journey!". India.com. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  26. ↑ "Doodle4Google Page". Google.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  27. ↑ "'Doodle 4 Google – My Ireland' competition". Google.ie. December 18, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  28. ↑ "'Doodle 4 Google — My India'". Google India. November 14, 2009. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  29. ↑ "Doodle 4 Google.com — Our Singapore". Google Singapore. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  30. ↑ Brown, Eliot (September 13, 2007). "Google Criticized for Honoring 'Anti-Israel' Author on Rosh Hashanah". The New York Sun. Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  31. ↑ "Google Doodles".
  32. ↑ Puzzanghera, Jim (October 9, 2007). "Tweaks send Google critics into orbit". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  33. ↑ "More Google: Holiday Logos". Google.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010.
  34. ↑ Cavna, Michael (March 31, 2013). "Google criticized for not marking Easter; company says 'it's difficult for us to choose'". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  35. 1 2 Mulshine, Molly (June 6, 2014). "D'oh: Google Deletes Non-D-Day Doodle – They accidentally honored a Japanese Go player instead". The New York Observer. Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  36. ↑ Grinberg, Emanuella (June 5, 2014). "Why You're Seeing More Women and People of Color Google Doodles". CNN. Retrieved June 17, 2015.
  37. 1 2 Matthews, Dylan (May 19, 2016). "Yuri Kochiyama, today's Google Doodle, fought for civil rights — and praised Osama bin Laden". Vox. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  38. 1 2 Neff, Blake (May 19, 2016). "Google Honors Bin Laden Supporter With Google Doodle". The Daily Caller. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  39. ↑ Ross, Janell (May 19, 2016). "Google commemorates a very controversial civil-rights figure, Yuri Kochiyama". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 19, 2016.
  40. ↑ Lee, Edmund (19 May 2016). "Google celebrated civil rights leader Yuri Kochiyama and some people think it's promoting radicalism". Recode. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  41. ↑ Trujillo, Mario (May 20, 2016). "GOP senator slams Google for tribute to controversial civil rights figure". The Hill. Retrieved May 28, 2016.
  42. ↑ "Yuri Kochiyama's 95th Birthday". Google, Inc. May 19, 2016. Retrieved September 3, 2016.

External links

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