700 Google Doodles: Design Inspiration
December 15, 2010 | Branding
Barely handicapped by the fact that we only ever see it online, the Google logo is one of the most recognisable in the world. But even though Google’s market position has given one of the most famous business logos, the reputation of the Google brand has as much to do with riffing on the base design as it does to the original logo itself. The logo variations, ‘Doodles’ as the internal development team calls them, are a fantastic reflection of not only the wide range of cultures who use the service, but of the wide range of things accessible via that service.
Back when Google still had its vestigial exclamation point, in August 1998, a stick figure appeared behind the second ‘O’, indicating the fact that the developers were ‘out of the office’ at the Burning Man festival. Later that year, a turkey would appear for a Thanksgiving logo variant, and the holiday is usually among the doodles posted to this day. These early doodles weren’t followed up on until Autumn the following year. In American Google received nationalistic stars and stripes at this time, whilst a snowy ‘seasons greetings’ themed logo was rolled out worldwide. As Google moved into 2000 and further cemented its brand, the logo designer group responsible for the doodles diversified their efforts, widening the number of public holidays they covered whilst also paying homage to international events such as the Olympics, held that year in Sydney. These events are now common subjects for doodle design, but moving into the second half of the decade, the Google doodle has diversified even further.
In early 2002, a precedent for doodles in homage to famous artists was established with a design celebrating Piet Mondrian’s Birthday. It was around 2002 that Google also became more strategic in deploying identities themed around local events and days on the various localised versions of the homepage. 2010 has been a particularly interesting year for the Google doodle. Historical events that are neither holidays nor official celebrations get their own doodle: recently, the logo depicted a bus in celebration of the 55 years since Rosa Park was arrested on a segregated bus. Google is also willing to put some quite elaborate development time into logos, as evidence by the 30th Anniversary Pac Man logo, featuring a fully playable version of the classic game.
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