Fantastic & Fun Google Doodles

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Have you heard of the word 'doodles'? Perhaps, you have without actually knowing or understanding what it means. The word 'doodle' has a nice sound to it. It is most often now associated with Google for its numerous 'doodles' that it designs and publishes on almost a daily basis to commemorate some event or the other on its website.

240th Birthday of Richard Trevithick

The dictionary meaning of 'doodle' as noun actually means 'a rough drawing made absent-mindedly while a person's attention is otherwise preoccupied'. From a verb perspective, it simply means to scribble absent-mindedly. Many a time, doodles are not those just composed of abstract and random lines or scribbles. In fact, such simple drawings can have concrete representational meaning.

Jules Verne's 183rd Birthday

It might surprise us to know that as children, all of us were actually involved in both scribbling and doodling. We have gone through that phase. Examples include doodling in our class notebooks, mostly in the margins, while we lost interest or were daydreaming. Remember those days of nostalgia when we did cartoon versions of our teachers, friends or classmates in school? How many times did we not draw famous fictional characters from comics or landscapes or our role models? The easiest doodles are those we drew of geometric shapes, patterns or textures. Even today, quite a few of us doodle with a pen or pencil on paper or board while doing some other task like talking on phone or thinking through an activity. Interestingly, doodling can be out of boredom or more often than not, because we are having fun.

50th Anniversary of the First Man in Space

Interestingly, the etymology of the word 'doodle' indicates that it originally appeared in the 17th century. It was used then to mean a fool or simpleton. It is also perhaps closely associated with the word 'dawdle' which we all know carries the meaning of being lazy or wasting time. This version appears to be more likely considering that doodles are usually drawn when one is preoccupied or bored or intending to have fun. Despite doodling meaning what it may mean, it does serve a positive function on our memory. According to a study published in the scientific journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, doodling can aid a person's memory by expending just enough energy to keep one from daydreaming, which demands a lot of the brain's processing power, as well as from not paying attention. Thus, it acts as a mediator between the spectrum of thinking too much or thinking too little and helps focus on the current situation. The study was done by Professor Jackie Andrade, of the School of Psychology at the University of Plymouth.

Agatha Christie's 120th Birthday

However, this innocuous word has been transformed in recent times with Google's association. Google has specialised in doodling when its first few doodles to commemorate certain events were received quite well by users. As per Google's own About Page on its doodles, doodles are the fun, surprising and sometimes spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists. The concept of the Google doodle was born in 1998 when Google founders Larry and Sergey played with the corporate logo to indicate their attendance at the Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert. They placed a stick figure drawing behind the 2nd "o" in the word, Google, and the revised logo was intended as a comical message to Google users that the founders were "out of office". While the first doodle was relatively simple, the idea of decorating the company logo to celebrate notable events was born.

First Day of School

Later, in 2000, a doodle was produced to commemorate Bastille Day. It was so well received by users. Thereon, doodles started showing up more and more regularly on the Google homepage initially celebrating familiar holidays. Today, they highlight a wide array of events and anniversaries globally. Consequently, the demand for doodles is at its peak. Google now has a team of talented illustrators and engineers - or popularly known as doodlers. It is the responsibility of these doodlers to make the Google home page lively, exciting and fun for Google users around the world. Till date, these doodlers have created over 2,000 doodles for Google homepages globally.

Amelia Earhart's 115th Birthday

For identifying the events or milestones for Google's doodles, a process of brainstorming is applied. The ideas come from multiple sources and include Googlers and Google's users. The purpose of these doodles is to celebrate interesting events and notable anniversaries that reflect Google's personality and love of innovation. Google users and public can also participate in ideas, design and events for Google's doodles. Google has setup an email address proposals@google.com where the public can send their contributions and requests.

And oh yes! Lest we forget, Google Doodles are not just about being colourful or fun! Importantly, they are all about information. Each doodle marks a significant moment of history.

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