Google Doodle

A Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Burning Man event in Black Rock City, Nevada, and was designed by co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed.^[1][2][3] Early marketing employee Susan Wojcicki then spearheaded subsequent Doodles, including an alien landing on Google and additional custom logos for major holidays.^[4] Google Doodles were designed by an outside contractor, cartoonist Ian David Marsden until 2000, when Page and Brin asked public relations officer Dennis Hwang to design a logo for Bastille Day. Since then, a team of employees called Doodlers have organized and published the Doodles.^[5]

Initially, Doodles were neither animated nor hyperlinked—they were simply images with tooltips describing the subject or expressing a holiday greeting. Doodles increased in both frequency and complexity by the beginning of the 2010s. On October 31, 2000, the first animated Doodle celebrated Halloween.^[6] On May 21, 2010, the first interactive Doodle appeared later celebrating Pac-Man,^[7] and hyperlinks also began to be added to Doodles, usually linking to a search results page for the subject of the Doodle. By 2014, Google had published over 2,000 regional and international Doodles throughout its homepages,^[8] often featuring guest artists, musicians, and personalities.^[9] By 2024, the Doodlers team had created over 5,000 Doodles for Google's homepages around the world.^[10]