Born of a whim, Google’s mutating logo is its most creative asset
Aug. 30, 1998
When employees left for the Burning Man festival, the Google logo became a cryptic BE BACK LATER sign. "There was no master plan for doodles at that point," says doodler-in-chief Ryan Germick.Google
April 22, 2007
A melting iceberg for Earth Day is one of many eco-minded doodles the team has created.Google
Jan. 28, 2008
Early on, Google used Lego blocks as casing for hard disks. Later it feted Lego's 50th anniversary.Google
May 16, 2008
Google beamed up its logo in a salute to the first laser, in one of many doodles lauding scientific discoveries.Google
Jan. 19, 2009
Guest artist Shepard Fairey (famed for his Obama HOPE poster) did a sketch for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.Google
Jan. 28, 2009
There was no other way to honor abstract artist Jackson Pollack than with achaotic drip painting.Google
March 2, 2009
The doodlers arranged classic Dr. Seuss characters, like the Cat in the Hat and the Grinch, to form the logo's letters.Google
April 27, 2009
The nod to Morse code is one of the most abstract doodles Google's created. The only problem: you can't hear it.Google
June 6, 2009
The Tetris logo looked ready to play, but the era of interactive doodles was still around the corner ...Google
May 21, 2010
... and it arrived in the form of Pac-Man. Click INSERT COIN twice and you get Ms. Pac-Man — all 256 levels.Google
Oct. 7, 2009
Scan the doodle that marks the first patent for the bar code and you'll decode Google embedded within.Google
Nov. 14, 2001
Google's first doodler, Dennis Hwang, gave the logo an Impressionist look for Claude Monet's birthday.Google
Nov. 10, 2009
Classic Sesame Street characters celebrated 40 years of the show in the first Google-doodle photo shoot.Google
May 7, 2010
Google asked the San Francisco Ballet to pose and twirl to re-create Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.Google
Sept. 30, 2010
Modern Stone Age family the Flintstones commandeered the logo for the cartoon's 50th anniversary.Google
Nov. 25, 2010
Chef Ina Garten prepared this Thanksgiving feast, which Google photographed. If you clicked on a dish, her recipe appeared.Google
Feb. 11, 2011
To commemorate the Wizard of Menlo Park's birthday, this doodle actuallycomes to life as an inventive and fascinating contraption (that includes, ofcourse, a lightbulb).Google
Feb. 14, 2011
The famous LOVE design by Robert Indiana, wildly popular for decades, wasturned into the Google logo, with the heart as a subtle nod to the artist.Google
Feb. 19, 2011
In recent years, doodles have been skewing more abstract, as in this rebus interpreting sculptor Constantin Brancusi.Google
March 20, 2011
This doodle celebrated India's Holi festival, in which Hindus douse eachother in dyes and colored water.Google
March 24, 2011
The Harry Houdini doodle was created in the style of the old postersadvertising the death-defying magician.Google
March 31, 2011
To celebrate the development of the Bunsen burner, this doodle became a miniature working science experiment.Google
March 14, 2003
The early doodles were often simple but playful, like this mustachioeddrawing of Albert Einstein to celebrate his birthday.Google
April 12, 2011
As the first man in space, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was remembered inthis funky throwback doodle.Google
April 16, 2011
The doodlers tried to get the Google founders to star in their first-ever short, inspired by Charlie Chaplin, but eventually cast themselves.Google
May 9, 2011
For illustrator Roger Hargreaves' 76th birthday, Google drew a series ofdoodles that included a number of his well-known characters, includingLittle Miss Sunshine and Mr. Happy.Google
May 20, 2011
To honor Emile Berliner, the inventor of the phonograph, this doodleemployed the old-school sound device as its G.Google
June 9, 2011
The doodlers came up with the idea of a playable logo, then pegged it to guitar innovator Les Paul's 96th birthday. Turning on composer mode allows you to create songs that you can share online.Google
February 22, 2012
Google's undulating, animated doodle of an electromagnetic wave was an homage to Heinrich Rudolph Hertz. The German physicist was born on February 22, 1857 in Hamburg, and is most famous for proving the existence of electromagnetic waves—the frequency of which is now measured in his namesake unit of measurement, the Hertz (Hz).Google
April 25, 2003
The doodle that went live honoring DNA's discovery had an incorrect double helix until users spotted the error.Google
Aug. 13, 2003
Early doodles of famous folk tended to be simple, like this silhouette of Alfred Hitchcock.Google
March 30, 2005
The Van Gogh doodle appeared in an era when doodles began to get moreambitious, and it's one of the doodlers' best interpretations of a specificpainter.Google
April 15, 2005
The Leonardo da Vinci doodle subtly encapsulated several of the artist's drawings and other works.Google
Jan. 4, 2006
Enter the world of out-there doodles — Google in braille. Only problem: you can't feel it.Google
May 22, 2006
By 2006, portraits of figures like author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were more ambitious.Google
