Gaga about Google’s Doodles?

Today’s Google Doodle commemorates what would have been famed SA novelist, Alan Paton’s 115^th birthday, which led to a whirly-burly digital journey to discover what these doodles are all about and how they came to be in the first place.

If you’ve never come across them before and are left confused by the term ‘Google Doodle’, you may have seen the artistic renderings that sometimes grade Google’s home page. Google’s Doodles are what the search engine behemoth itself describes as the ‘fun, surprising, and sometimes spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists, pioneers, and scientists’.

It originated in 1998, when Google founders Larry and Sergey adapted the corporate logo to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. While the revised logo was merely intended as a comical message to Google users to indicate the founders were ‘out of office’, it also birthed the idea of decorating the company logo to celebrate notable events.

In 2000, they asked current webmaster Dennis Hwang, who was an intern, to produce a doodle for Bastille Day. It was so well received that Dennis was appointed Google’s chief doodler. Due to their popularity, it spawned an entire team of talented illlustrators (aka doodlers) and engineers who still today make it their mission to reimagine the unmistakable logo. Their job is a group effort aimed at enlivening the Google homepage and bringing smiles to Google users around the world. While they initially focused on and celebrated familiar holidays, nowadays they highlight a wide array of events and anniversaries, and according to a National Public Radio article published in November 2017, Google doodler Nate Swinehart says they can also convey powerful messages. We’re saying more with them. We’re reinventing them technologically, but also topically.”

According to the Google Doodle webpage, the team has created over 2,000 doodles for Google homepages around the world. While they welcome ideas from users, who can email these to proposals@google.com, the team won’t respond to everyone as they receive hundreds of requests daily.

There’s even a Doodle4Google competition running currently, although its exclusively valid for in the 50 states of the United States, Puerto Rico, Guam and the district of Columbia. The competition encourages children to use their imagination to create a Google Doodle based on what inspires them. The entries are assessed on their artistic merit, creativity and theme communication and awards prizes to winners.

The interesting doodles have not always been well received, though. One that left people scratching their proverbial heads featured crop circles on its home page. While the rumour mill believed it signalled an imminent new product, the company said it was celebrating the birthday of H.G. Wells.

It’s not all sunshine and roses in Google Doodle-land, however, as the lighthearted attempts to inspire and provide insight have at times resulted in digital firestorms. Doodles that have courted controversy include the doodle which celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik apparently offended those who were harbouring Cold War grudges. Another, which was later taken down, depicted a mashup of artist Joan Miro’s iconic works from the 1940s. Her family reportedly objected, saying it violated the ‘moral rights of the artist’.  While Google did remove it, it denied it was a copyright violation.

Whether you enjoy the sometimes static and at other times animated renditions and games that now incorporate a wide array of meanings on the Google home page, it certainly seems they’re here to stay.

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