Friday, February 14, 2014

Google Doodle Fun

Today is Valentine's Day. The biggest highlights of my day were the warm weather (no gloves!), working in the floral shop at Wegmans helping flustered men find flowers for their significant others, and discovering the new Google doodle for the day!

Here is that doodle.

I have found that I am intrigued by these Google doodles. I wasn't even aware that they had a name, but they always bring a smile to my day. These doodles started off as still images. The Google founders played around with the logo to create a humorous image for the Burning Man festival. Two years later, in 2000, they asked Dennis Hwang, an intern at the time to create a doodle for Bastille Day. This was such a success that he was given the title of chief doodler. (See the source webpage here)

Nowadays, these doodles have a massive range of purposes from small moving images that dance when the mouse passes over them to in depth games to attached videos or audio snippets. Here is an example of an in depth game that has distracted me as I write this blog: Dr. Who.

It is astonishing that even though these look so simple, they can be so entertaining and fun. Who really expects to find something that makes you smile when you go to do research for an analytical paper? Even though some of these may not classify under motion graphics and animation, some of it must be created using these tools. In the Valentine's doodle seen above, each of the hearts has a story told with small animated shorts playing out across their surface. These are small creations that I would love to learn how they are made and created. So simple in look, though I'm sure they are complex, but so fun and popular nonetheless. I always look forward to seeing what Google has done to its logo on holidays.

To browse through the doodles, check out this website!

by Amber Capogrossi

No comments :

Post a Comment