The Artists Behind The Google Doodles
A “guild” of unseen artists creating work for the world’s most visited website.
It’s Halloween! You open Google, as any college student does multiple times per day, and you see today’s delightful Google Doodle. It’s a house! On the house are different doors, you can click to open. Behind one is a friendly spider swinging from his web. Behind another is a tiny bat that turns into a vampire!
These doodles are so intricate and often interactive; but, who is creating them? Think of all the artwork, coding, and research that goes into something that is only on Google.com for one day. And, doodles are different all over the world! A Google Doodle created in 2010 for Mary Shelley’s 213th birthday, was only viewable to Google users in certain parts of Europe.
So Where Did This Idea Come From?
Google Doodle was originally thought up when website’s founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, created a humorous logo change to indicate their trip to Burning Man in Nevada.
A few years later, a Google intern was asked to create a special doodle for Bastille day. From then on, the demand for doodles only grew and now has doodles for holidays from Argentinian Election Day to Sir William Ramsay’s 167th Birthday. And that intern? He is Dennis Hwang, currently serving as Google’s webmaster and master doodle designer. So take your intern work seriously, kids.
Who Is Actually Creating The Doodles?
After Dennis Hwang’s triumph with a few familiar holiday logos, Google now has a dedicated team of illustrators and coding engineers that create what you see today. According to an interview from The Guardian, doodler Ryan Germick comments that their office is a fun and creative workplace with no room for rules and regulations. Other than the actual Google team, there is an opportunity once a year for Google users to submit their work and ideas. Check out the link in the related articles section below!
This week’s challenge: Visit the Google Doodle Archive! Post a link to your favorite in the comments below.
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