You have reached a toxic level of cynicism if you can’t admit that Google Doodles are kind of awesome. They are the click-able equivalent to those Fact-a-Day calendars that we all bought for Fathers Day or Christmas at least once between 1982 and 1988. In fact, Google Doodles have become a techie harbinger of pop culture and events.
Google Doodles are created by engineers and Doodlers (a cute name for illustrators) and are brainstormed by a Doodle team of Google users and staff with the goal of celebrating and marking important cultural events and anniversaries. Since the Doodle inception of 1998, inspired by a visit by Google founders Larry and Sergey to the…where else?…Burning Man Festival, there have been more than 1000 Google Doodles.
Some of the most popular Google Doodles:
The London 2012 Closing Ceremony Doodle: featuring virtual athletes including a female archer, a synchronized swimming team, a shot-put athlete with armpit hair, a javelin thrower with an impressive nose and others.
The Les Paul 96th Birthday Doodle: a super cool guitar Doodle with playable strings that allowed you to record a 30 second snippet of your artist genius.
The Jim Henson Doodle: this let Google users unleash their inner puppeteer with adorable Jim Henson Muppet creations.
The Charlie Chaplin Doodle: Google celebrated the silent film star’s birthday with a short film in his style.
So the next time that you’re sitting at your desk, struggling with work stress, take a few minutes of downtime and check out a Google Doodle. Studies show that with a brief “switching off” you’ll return to work being more productive…or at the very least having learned that it’s Julia Child’s birthday.
Sylvia McNamee is Blogger at Mijo! Brands in Mexico.
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