10.31.14

What’s Your Favorite Google Doodle?

Despite the overall simplicity of its homepage, Google never fails to keep us coming back through the use of its ever-inventive “Google Doodles”. Defined by Google itself as “the fun, surprising, and sometimes spontaneous changes that are made to the Google logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries, and the lives of famous artists, pioneers, and scientists”, Doodles have become one of the most distinctive and popular features of the world’s most visited search engine. Since their development in 1998, Google Doodles are now created by a team of illustrators, or “doodlers”, who are constantly praised by users for their highly innovative and creative logo animations, illustrations, and interactive games.

As avid lovers of the ever-changing Google Doodle, and with the help of Google’s handy archive, we have attempted to compile a list of some of our favorite Doodles from the past 16 years.

1. 30^th Anniversary of PAC-MAN

Google’s first-ever interactive Doodle was created in May 2010 as a way to celebrate one of the most iconic video games of all time. Play it here.

2. Rubik’s Cube

The Rubik’s Cube Doodle from May 2014 was a fully functional, animated Doodle that caused puzzle-lovers everywhere to spend their entire day attempting to solve this highly difficult virtual game. Play it here.

3. Jim Henson’s 75^th Birthday

To celebrate Muppets creator Jim Henson, Google featured an animated Doodle of digital Muppets that responded to the movement of your mouse.

4. Total Lunar Eclipse

Google covered the 100-minute lunar eclipse in 2011 by creating a real-time, interactive Doodle that updated throughout the day with the current state of the moon. Check it out here.

5. 71^st Anniversary of the Wizard of Oz

This is a great example of the ever-impressive illustrative talents of the Google Doodlers, who, in August 2010, creatively used the landscape of a scene from one of our favorite classic films to spell out the logo.

Given the endless number of highly impressive Google Doodles from the past 16 years, narrowing it down to only five of them proved to be even more challenging than we could have imagined. However, we encourage our fellow Doodle-lovers to browse the Google Doodles website and share some of their own favorites with us! We look forward to seeing the ones that you love most…