Interactive yet Informative Doodles

Google, one of the biggest companies in the world is the main knowledge hub for all the knowledge that we have today.  From google search to google assistant, it plays an important role in our daily lives in imparting knowledge as well as completing our daily chores. A day without google is unimaginable. Likewise, it also reminds us of the of the historical events like an important persons birthday, death anniversary, historical event occurred on that day as well as big event like Olympics or world cup being held currently. Google reminds us all this stuff through their interactive as well as sometimes addictive doodles.

I am currently addicted to the ICC Champions trophy doodle which is on display at the google search bar.  

Origin of doodle

The google doodle was created first by non-other than the founders of the google company – Larry Page and Sergey Brin.  

It was in august 1998 when Larry and Sergey mentioned the attendance of the burning man festival organized in Nevada, USA in the corporate logo of Google. They placed a stick figure in the 2^nd ‘o’ of google word and tried to give a message to the users that Larry and Sergey were out of office busy attending the festival in Nevada .

First official attempt

In 2000, Larry and Sergey asked webmaster of their company Dennis Hwang to create a doodle for Bastille Day of France. 

It was so well created and appreciated by the users that doodle department was born and Dennis was made it’s head and was called as the chief doodler. They started growing and started showing family days, event and anniversaries.  It grew popular all over the world and a team of illustrators or doodlers (as google call them) in Google started creating them for every event on every other occasion of every other country.

Further development

The doodle enriches the google search page and keeps the users interacted with daily events and history. Till 2010 the doodles were not animated but just simple colorful drawing. On January 2010 the first animated doodle was posted which honoured Sir Isaac Newton 367^th birthday. In this doodle the apple fell from the branches.

On May 2010, it was the 30^th anniversary of the famous Pac-man game and google celebrated it by creating an interactive Pac man game in the form of a google doodle. You could actually move the Pac-man using the W, A, S, D keyboard keys.   

Google also started adding hyperlinks to the doodle so that when the users clicks the doodle , he/she can go further into the webpage and gain more information about that particular content of the doodle. Till 2014, according to google data, they have published around 2000 doodles.

Some famous doodles

Google not only celebrates events and holidays but it also honours several celebrities and historical figures from various fields. Till now they have honoured 9000 important figures around the world. Some of the Indian figures include Dr. Rajkumar, Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray and Mahatma Gandhi and may more.

The interested users can also send the ideas and recommendations regarding the creation of a particular doodle of their country. You can mail your ideas to proposals@google.com.