How to create artwork that is seen by
50 million people in one day
While working on the famed Google Webmaster Team, I got the unique opportunity to contribute to some of the most iconic brand moments; the ever changing Google homepage logos, nicknamed Google Doodles.
During that time I created more than 25 doodles, mostly for local events in the EMEA region, occasionally for all of Europe and and one global doodle; a distinguished honor.
This one celebrated Juan DeLaCierva, inventor of the autogiro
Final of the European Champions League in Rome. This one ran all over Europe
Swiss National Day. This one was modelled after some of the great tourism posters from the 20's and 30's
Vasaloppet, the world's biggest cross-country ski race
The invention of the bar code
The doodle celebrating the invention of the bar code was a global doodle.
While it looks kind of obvious, it took some effort the get everyone up to the SVP of product to get approval, to replace Google’s home page logo for a day with something that did not say “Google“ at all (unless you scanned the barcode obviously) and was for the first time in Google history entirely without color.
I had a colored version ready but I’m happy we stuck to the original concept.
The day the doodle ran I was actually travelling in India and was immensly proud to see my work on some dusty old screen in some backroom up in the Himalayas.
The 50 million views is obviously an estimate, I did not have access to the logs nor would I disclose, if I had.
