Friday 27th September marks 15 years since Google ran its first ever search through its world famous engine. Since then, the internet giant has come to be synonymous with web innovation and cool internet tricks - type in 'do a barrel roll' into their search bar for a surprise. More importantly, Google has become arguably most famous for their daily celebration of world events, anniversaries, and memorials through the homepage logo. Like any good animation, browsers need only take one look at these so called 'Doodles' and understand immediately the message they're trying to convey.
Ahead of Google's birthday, simpleshow looks back at our top five best Doodle's of all time which celebrates the power of animation:
"Today, on PAC-MAN's 30th birthday, you can rediscover some of your 8-bit memories--or meet PAC-MAN for the first time--through our first-ever playable Google doodle," commented Marcin Wichary, the designer that produced this unforgettable entry. When Google decided to immortalise the legendary arcade game PAC-MAN on 22nd May 2010, not only did it rob many users of their Friday afternoons, but it was so popular that Google decided to keep it as a permanent installation.
On 8th October 2010 it would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday, and in order to celebrate the life of one of the most influential musicians of all time, Google decided to create their first-ever animated video Doodle. The 32-second animation put images of butterflies and flowers to his classic 'Imagine'. Mike Dutton who penned the animation, wrote affectionately of his piece: "The old saying, 'A picture is worth a thousand words' still rings true, so I hope a moving picture will help me adequately--and simply--thank John for the memories."
The Queen front man was gifted with this stunning animation almost a year later on what would have been his 65th birthday. The Doodle video portrays Freddie and the band blasting out 'Don't Stop Me Now' live on stage, into space and beyond. The development of the 90-second tribute took four months and required a whole team of animators, illustrators and even an engineer. The animation gives a sense, as guitarist Brian May put it, of Freddie's "artistic madness, and the collective mad power of the group Queen."
The Horse in Motion, the very same animation recreated in this doodle, was an early experiment conducted by Eadweard using 24 cameras to capture the movement of a horse. While he didn't know it at the time, when Eadweard J. Muybridge put together a device to animate his many photographs in 1879, he accidentally invented the very first movie projector. This Doodle, which appeared on the 9th April 2012, pays homage to one of the early craftsman of animation.
Lead designer Leon Hong aimed to "make a doodle that would look nice as a French wine label." Not only did Leon achieve this ambition, but also managed to create one of the most visually compelling animations in the collection. Marking the 182nd birthday of Claude Debussy, one of the most influential composers of all time, this animation puts the magical melody of Clair de Lune to a moonlit cityscape.
At simpleshow, 'Doodles', or as we like to call them, 'scribbles' is at the heart of our animated explainer videos. Like Google, we understand that a topic, theme or subject needs to be visualised in the simplest way in order to be instantly understood by viewers all over the world. We always follow the rule that wherever possible, dispense with text and use symbols that can be easily understood at first glance by an international audience, be it a scribble of John Lennon, Freddie Mercury, or even PAC-MAN!