AGoogle Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada, and was designed by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed. [1] [2] [3] Early marketing employee Susan Wojcicki then spearheaded subsequent Doodles, including an alien landing on Google and additional custom logos for major holidays. [4] Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, cartoonist Ian David Marsden until 2000, when Page and Brin asked public relations officer Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day. Since then, a team of employees called Doodlers have organized and published the Doodles. [5]
Initially, Doodles were neither animated nor hyperlinked—they were simply images with tooltips describing the subject or expressing a holiday greeting. Doodles increased in both frequency and complexity by the beginning of the 2010s. On October 31, 2000, the first animated Doodle celebrated Halloween. [6] On May 21, 2010, the first interactive Doodle appeared later celebrating Pac-Man , [7] 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, [8] often featuring guest artists, musicians, and personalities. [9] By 2024, the Doodlers team had created over 5,000 Doodles for Google's homepages around the world. [10]
In addition to celebrating many well-known events and holidays, Google Doodles celebrate artists and scientists on their birthdays. [11] The featuring of Lowell's logo design coincided with the launch of another Google product, Google Maps. Doodles are also used to depict major events at Google, such as the company's own anniversary. [12] The celebration of historic 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]
Since the first Thanksgiving Doodle in 1998, many Doodles for holidays, events and other celebrations have recurred annually. These include:
Doodlers is Google's name for the illustrators, engineers and artists who design the Doodles. They have included artists like Ekua Holmes, Jennifer Hom, Sophia Foster-Dimino, Ranganath Krishnamani, Dennis Hwang, Olivia Fields, Nate Swinehart, Lynnette Haozous, and Eric Carle. [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23]
In May 2010, on the 30th anniversary of the 1980 arcade game Pac-Man , Google unveiled worldwide their first interactive logo, created in association with Namco. [24] 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 the user 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 [25] a permanent site to play Google Pac-Man (accessed by clicking on top icon), due to the popular user demand for the playable logo. [25] Pac-Man Doodle drew an estimated 1 billion players worldwide. [26]
Since that time, Google has continued to post occasional interactive and video doodles:
Google holds competitions for school students to create their own Google doodles, referred to as Doodle 4 Google. [101] Winning doodles go onto the Doodle4Google 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. [102] Google announced a Doodle 4 Google competition for India in 2009 [103] 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 was shown on Singapore's National Day on Google Singapore's homepage. [104] It was held again in 2015 in Singapore and was themed 'Singapore: The next 50 years'.
On September 13, 2007, Google posted a doodle honoring author Roald Dahl on the anniversary of his birth, but this date coincided with the first day of the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah, and Google was immediately criticized by some groups[ specify ] for this decision, mainly because Dahl has been accused of anti-Semitism. 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. [105] [106]
In 2007, Google was also criticized for not featuring Doodles for American patriotic holidays, such as Memorial Day and Veterans Day. [107] In that year, Google featured a logo commemorating Veterans Day. [108]
In 2014, Google received some criticism for not honoring the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion with a Doodle and instead honoring Japanese Go player Honinbo Shusaku. [109] In response to the criticism, Google removed that logo from their homepage and added a series of links to images of the invasion of Normandy. [109]
On May 19, 2016, Google honored Yuri Kochiyama, an Asian-American activist and member of the Maoist-based black nationalist group Revolutionary Action Movement, with a Doodle on its main American homepage. [110] [111] This choice was criticized by conservative commentators due to some Kochiyama's controversial opinions, such as admiration for Osama bin Laden and Mao Zedong. [110] [112] U.S. Senator Pat Toomey called for a public apology from Google. [113] Not like the anteriorly cited times, Google did not respond to any criticism, nor did it alter the presentation of the Doodle on its homepage or on the Doodle's dedicated page. [114]
In 2014, a report published by SPARK Movement, an activist organization, stated that there was a large gender and race imbalance in the number of Doodles shown by Google, and that most Doodles were honoring white males. [115] The report was widely reported in the media, and Google made a commitment to increase the proportion of women and racial minorities. [116] [117]
Google typically abstains from referencing or celebrating religious holidays specifically in Doodles, or in cases when they do, religious themes and iconography are avoided. Google has acknowledged this as an official policy, stating in April 2018 that they "don't have Doodles for religious holidays", according to "current Doodle guidelines". Google further explained that Doodles may appear for some "non-religious celebrations that have grown out of religious holidays", citing Valentine's Day (Christianity), Holi (Hinduism), and Tu B'Av (Judaism) as examples, but that the company does not include "religious imagery or symbolism" as part of those Doodles. [118]
Google has been criticized[ by whom? ] for what has been perceived as its inconsistency regarding the implementation of its religious holiday policy, notably its lack of Doodles for major Christian holidays. Critics have pointed to its yearly recognition of the Jewish and Hindu festivals of Tu B'av and Holi, while Easter only received an official Doodle once in 2000 (and a themed homepage in 2019). [119] [120] Christmas is not specifically celebrated by name, [a] although a Doodle with a seasonally festive and/or winter theme has always been present on December 25 since 1999. Since the mid-2010s, Google has also repeated their December 25 doodle on January 7, which is the date for Christmas in the Eastern Orthodox Church, but the word "Christmas" has never explicitly been used; the terminology "holidays" and "Eastern Europe" are used instead of "Christmas" or "Eastern Orthodox Church". [121] [122]
Google first created a Doodle for Easter in 2000, and did not acknowledge the holiday on its homepage again until 2019. In March 2013, Google was criticized[ by whom? ] for celebrating American activist Cesar Chavez on Easter Sunday with a Doodle instead of Easter. [123]
In 2019, after an 18-year hiatus, Google presented an atypical "Doodle" for Easter, for the desktop version of their homepage only. Unlike what is seen in virtually all other Doodles, the Google logo itself was unaltered in the presentation of the Doodle, and users had to click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button where "Lucky" is replaced with an anthropomorphic Easter egg, [120] which triggered a falling array of Easter-themed items such as eggs, bunnies, and hot cross buns. Some of these items were hyperlinked, leading to a detailed page about Easter customs. Google's official Doodle archive page originally contained an unlisted entry for the 2019 Easter Doodle, which has since been removed. [b] [124] Notably, the 2019 Easter-themed homepage was not visible from mobile devices unless the "Desktop mode" option was triggered on the mobile browser, leading to the majority of users not ever seeing the "Doodle". Danny Sullivan, technologist with Google involved with the Easter-themed homepage, responded to an inquiry about its absence on mobile by saying it was "hard to do the interactivity dependably [on mobile]". [125]
In 2020, Google once again celebrated Easter atypically on its homepage, but not as a Doodle. An Easter egg was placed below the "Google Search" and "I'm Feeling Lucky" buttons, with hovertext indicating "Happy Easter". [126] When clicked, the egg led to a search results page for "Easter". This is similar to how Memorial Day and Remembrance Day have been recognized by the company in the US. [127]
Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant figures of π, and was first celebrated in the United States. It was founded in 1988 by Larry Shaw, an employee of a science museum in San Francisco, the Exploratorium. Celebrations often involve eating pie or holding pi recitation competitions. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day. UNESCO's 40th General Conference designated Pi Day as the International Day of Mathematics in November 2019.
Zamenhof Day, also called Esperanto Book Day, is celebrated on 15 December, the birthday of Esperanto creator L. L. Zamenhof. It is the most widely celebrated day in Esperanto culture. On this day, Esperantists hold information sessions and cultural gatherings to promote literature in Esperanto.
Mother's Day is a celebration honoring the mother of the family or individual, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society. It is celebrated on different days in many parts of the world, most commonly in March or May. It complements similar celebrations honoring family members, such as Father's Day, Siblings Day, and Grandparents' Day.
Father's Day is a holiday honoring one's father, as well as fatherhood, paternal bonds, and the influence of fathers in society. The holiday complements similar celebrations honoring family members, such as Mother's Day and, in some countries, Siblings Day, and Grandparents' Day. The day is held on various dates across the world, and different regions maintain their own traditions of honoring fatherhood.
A religious festival is a time of special importance marked by adherents to that religion. Religious festivals are commonly celebrated on recurring cycles in a calendar year or lunar calendar. The science of religious rites and festivals is known as heortology.
Public holidays in Australia refer to the holidays recognised in law in Australia. Although they are declared on a state and territory basis, they comprise a mixture of nationally celebrated days and holidays exclusive to the individual jurisdictions.
In the United States, public holidays are set by federal, state, and local governments and are often observed by closing government offices or giving government employees paid time off. The federal government does not require private businesses to close or offer paid time off, as is the case for most state and local governments, so employers determine which holidays to observe.
Public holidays in New Zealand consist of a variety of cultural, national, and religious holidays that are legislated in New Zealand. Workers can get a maximum of 12 public holidays and a minimum of 20 annual leave days a year.
The King's Official Birthday is the selected day in most Commonwealth realms on which the birthday of the monarch is officially celebrated in those countries. It does not necessarily correspond to the date of the monarch's actual birth.
An Armed Forces Day, alongside its branch-specific variants often referred to as Army or Soldier's Day, Navy or Sailor's Day, and Air Force or Aviator's Day, is a holiday dedicated to honoring the armed forces, or one of their branches, of a sovereign state, including their personnel, history, achievements, and perceived sacrifices. It's often patriotic or nationalistic in nature, carrying propaganda value outside of the conventional boundaries of a military's subculture and into the wider civilian society. Many nations around the world observe this day. It is usually distinct from a Veterans or Memorial Day, as the former is dedicated to those who previously served and the latter is dedicated to those who perished in the fulfillment of their duties.
Public holidays in Italy are established by the Italian parliament and, with the exception of city or community patronal days, apply nationwide. These include a mix of national, religious and local observances. As for Whit Monday, there is an exception for South Tyrol. In Italy there are also State commemoration days, which are not public holidays.
The Google logo appears in numerous settings to identify the search engine company. Google has used several logos over its history, with the first logo created by Sergey Brin using GIMP. A revised logo debuted on September 1, 2015. The previous logo, with slight modifications between 1999 and 2013, was designed by Ruth Kedar, with a wordmark based on the Catull font, an old style serif typeface designed by Gustav Jaeger for the Berthold Type Foundry in 1982.
Heroes' Day or National Heroes' Day may refer to a number of commemorations of national heroes in different countries and territories. It is often held on the birthday of a national hero or heroine, or the anniversary of their great deeds that made them heroes.
A birthday is the anniversary of the birth of a person, or figuratively of an institution. Birthdays of people are celebrated in numerous cultures, often with birthday gifts, birthday cards, a birthday party, or a rite of passage.
Ambedkar Jayanti or Bhim Jayanti is observed on 14 April to commemorate the memory of B. R. Ambedkar, Indian politician and social reformer. It marks Ambedkar's birthday who was born on 14 April 1891. His birthday is also referred to as 'Equality Day' by some in India.
Presidents' Day, officially Washington's Birthday at the federal governmental level, is a holiday in the United States celebrated on the third Monday of February. It is often celebrated to honor all those who served as presidents of the United States and, since 1879, has been the federal holiday honoring Founding Father George Washington, who led the Continental Army to victory in the American Revolutionary War, presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and was from 1789 to 1797 the first U.S. president.
In marketing, a corporate anniversary is a celebration of a firm's continued existence after a particular number of years. The celebration is a media event which can help a firm achieve diverse marketing goals, such as promoting its corporate identity, boosting employee morale, building greater investor confidence, and encouraging sales. As a public relations opportunity, it is a way for a firm to tout past accomplishments while strengthening relationships with employees and customers and investors. The duration of the celebration itself can vary considerably, from an hour or day to activities happening throughout the year. Many businesses use an anniversary to express gratitude for past success. Generally, larger corporations have the means to stage more elaborate celebrations.
The Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution is celebrated on January 30 in California and a growing number of additional states to commemorate the birthday of Fred Korematsu, a Japanese-American civil rights activist best known for resisting the internment of Japanese Americans. It also recognizes American civil liberties and rights under the Constitution of the United States. It is the first day in U.S. history named after an Asian American.
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