Do you know how a doodle involved with the Google logo?

Katy Wu, 28, is an American artist who is dedicated to designing, day after day, the drawings that appear in one of the most visited Internet sites: Google. Namely, these surprise changes that are performed on the search engine logo to celebrate holidays, anniversaries and births of artists, pioneers, or scientists. Katy Wu was the artist responsible for carrying out the doodle to commemorate the birth of Victoria Ocampo.

According to Wu defines these “interventions” consist of drawings, interactive occasions at the same time aim to commemorate events, communicate values or discoveries that have marked the history. What you can not miss when designing, she explains, is the word Google, or at least the representation of it through some letters or its characteristic colors. Eight of art, four engineers and three coordinators are those who make up the team of doodlers Internet giant. It is responsible for the design drawing that appears in the search for 24 hours home page.

THE ORIGIN

In 1998 the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, first played with the logo of the company to change the second “or” Image of the Burning Man Festival in Nevada. This simple drawing a “doodle” in its English translation, was what made them known as a doodle. One name that stood perhaps at its catchy name associated with the company. “Not a doodle on a napkin”, jokes a warning Wu, from his home in California via a video conference.

HOW DOES A DOODLE?

When a relevant date approaches, the team doodlers meet to contribute ideas to the project in the process of brainstorming. If this is a doodle alien to America, with the team is not familiar, the suggestion come from the regional offices of Google. Since then, the designer appointed to the doodle starts searching for information and pictures to help form a concept of what you represent (a person, event, discovery or achievement).

– What happens when you have to design a doodle that does not belong to the U.S. market?

– Should be a doodle for the exterior, the artist is responsible for collating data and historical and cultural specifications with the Google team to the region to which the work so you do not accidentally affect on political or contingent form addresses. Then it will make at least three drafts to translate ideas. These sketches will be shared with the team of doodlers to contribute ideas and suggestions to decide which the project that will be sent to supervisors is. Once the draft is approved, the doodle is near complete, just needs to be painted and receive the final touches. The whole process takes a few weeks of work.

Although all doodles are designed in the office of Mountain View, California, where the headquarters of Google, at times artists are hired freelance collaborating in the creative process. This was the case doodle Wu designed for Halloween 2013, when worked with an animator who made the stop-motion. This project as the most challenging to develop so far touched because it had to learn to use new animation programs in the limited time that required work.

The interactive doodles, or video games that become as events for anniversaries of Pac-Man and Doctor Who, take time of work can vary between three and four months. It performed simultaneously with other projects that the doodler has, in collaboration with the team engineers who are responsible for the operation. Besides the time it takes, another reason not many interactive doodles are made in a year is due to the small number of engineers in the team.

If this is a project that requires more attention, more than one artist will be part of the job. The size of the search box is the main limitation to the size of the doodle; files, meanwhile, should be light to load fast and users should not expect to see the picture. The animations and videos can not be longer than two minutes. The success or failure of a doodle is measured through visits and clicks you receive. Most notable are the lively and interactive.

The classic commemorative action involving the Google logo, world leader in Internet search, adds this nice way to activities of all kinds, from somber to festive, alluding to the tragic event scheduled for the date.

The exclusion, however, could come from a confusion Google headquarters in California, where its technicians, warned that the Mayan apocalypse had not spread beyond the Latino culture, failed to Uruguay for being considered the “Switzerland of America” as is usually evoked.

Anyway, the Uruguayan immigration authorities were thus indoctrinated taking orders for the case of a flood of foreigners would arrive the only Latin American country safe from the tragedy announced either before consummation for safety, and after the End of the World, and enjoy the beaches in the summer budding.