February 16, 2005

Google's Logo

I have always liked the logos that Google uses on their website. The logo changes to reflect holidays, events, anniversaries, etc... I always thought that it was the work of a committee -- today I found out that it is the work of one man. The Toronto Star has a nice interview with Dennis Hwang: bq. Doodling with the Google logo If you're a young student who gets into trouble for doodling during class, you should probably read this. And after you've read it, you should clip it out, laminate it, punch two holes in the top, loop a string through those holes, and wear it to school like a necklace. bq. This story is about your new hero, a guy who doodled a lot as a kid then landed one of the sweetest gigs in the world because of it. bq. At 26, Dennis Hwang is already in his fifth year at Google Inc. As an international webmaster, he spends most of his time programming and managing site content. But Hwang has another, more creative role. bq. He's the artist behind the illustrated Google logos that seem to pop up magically on holidays and important anniversaries. If you're a regular user of the popular Internet search engine, you've probably seen Hwang's beautifully rendered designs, including one for the Chinese New Year last Wednesday. By incorporating images into the letters that make up Google's corporate logo, he has celebrated everything from Earth Day to the 100th anniversary of flight. bq. In doing so, Hwang brings a splash of colour to an online institution that's really not much more than an elaborate web-based indexing program. bq. "It makes things really fun, and our users appreciate it too," says Hwang from the Google offices in Mountain View, Calif. "It makes people feel that Google is connected to the same world that they live in. It's not some automated machine that's just chugging along, there's actually people working behind the scenes." Fun interview -- here are two of his logos:
googlelogo-xprize.gif
The X-Prize success
googlelogo-halloween.gif
Halloween 2004
Posted by DaveH at February 16, 2005 6:16 PM