Google Doodles are the Cracker Jack prizes of the Internet, the digital back of the cereal box, a quirk that humanise the giant search company. And it’s funny because the Doodles themselves exist in a sort of mysterious world — they pop up one day and then disappear. Very few people know about the process of creating Google Doodles. Well, here are the humans of the Google Doodle team talking about doodling.
Computer History put up a lengthy interview with the team behind Google Doodles and it’s a doozy of information. If you’re a fan of Internet history or the process of art in the digital age or just curious about quirkiness, it’s a must watch. As for how the Google Doodles first started?
In 1998, before the company was even incorporated, the concept of the doodle was born when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin played with the corporate logo to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. Two years later, in 2000, Larry and Sergey asked an intern to produce a doodle for Bastille Day which was so well received by users that a chief doodler was appointed, and doodles started showing up more and more regularly on the Google homepage.
Burning man. [Computer History via The High Definite]