What is Google Doodle?
Everybody would have seen Google changing its way of depicting the letters in the word “Google” for their homepage. This happens every day based up on the importance of the day, but most of us would not have thought that Google has named this Google Doodle. In simple words Google Doodle is the artistic representation of the Google logo.
The first Google Doodle was launched in 1998 (Burning Man festival) and from that time it has undergone many changes in years. Now Google Doodles are animated, interactive and hyperlinked. A Google Doodle usually represents important dates, events (even about Google), and famous personalities. For some days they show different Doodles in different countries according to the specialty of the day in that country.
The decision of what has to be celebrated using the Doodle is done with the help of a brainstorming session of both Googlers (full time Google corporation employee) and users. The public also can send (email) the proposals for the next Doodle at ‘proposals@google.com’. Some of the festivals are fixed and are represented using a Doodle every year. For example days like Earth day, Mother’s day and Father’s day are celebrated every year. Then the decided event, birthday or festival details are passed on to the Google Doodlers.
The Doodlers:
The team that designs and publishes the Doodles every day is called the Doodlers. In the beginning this was done by external contractors but now Google has its own team called Google Doodlers to create their Doodles all over the world. This is a team effort of talented engineers and illustrators employed by Google.
Google even arranges a competition for the kids to create their own designs and submit to Google. Then this is uploaded for the public to vote for the winner who will be awarded with a trip to the Googleplex (The headquarters of Google in California). The winning doodle will be displayed for 24 hours in the Google homepage. The competitions are held in different countries for different themes. You can have a look at the different Doodles Google has launched till now in the Google Doodle archive (https://www.google.com/doodles#archive).
Just like all new things Google also faced criticism when they changed the traditional theory – the company logo should be consistent, correct and respected since it represents the brand name of the company. Some countries and communities complained that their festival or dates were not celebrated by Google. Google has overcome all those and is continuing with their awesome way of representing their logo.
