Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Happy Googleween

Art through the ages. Or at least since 1999. Google comes up with fun artistic doodles that coincide with holidays or other noteworthy events. Here are their Halloween Doodles:

1999 Doodle
Clean, neat and symmetrical. Matching pumpkins -- Get used to pumpkins (hey, a pumpkin!) -- means less time wasted designing TWO festive gourds, and all the iconic non-Halloween Google colors remain firmly in place.



2000 Doodle
In one short year we see a bit more creativity. Gone are the primary colors and now we're down to a more appropriate black-orange-yellow combination. The spider web is a nice touch, but the pumpkins (hey, a pumpkin!) whom I've named "Growly" and "Goofy" are kind of ... dippy. I'd go back to the matching 1999 version.


2001 Doodle
Google cartoony goodness. Welcome back, Blue, Red and Green. All that black and orange a bit too depressing, eh? This doodle goes for the whimsical, with an obvious Ghostbuster's ripoff, a better looking pumpkin than 2000 (hey, a pumpkin!), and a cat that looks neither scared nor scary. I think the word I'm looking for here is ... electrocuted.


2002 Doodle
This year Google goes for a more integrated holiday landscape effect. It's interesting that they dared to obscure some letters (Gooole? Gooqle?) but the primary blue, red and green are still there to make sure you know THIS IS GOOGLE, DAMMIT. Still, it seems slightly more artistic and slightly less "let's just do something stupid with the "O" in the middle ... Hey, a pumpkin!"


2003 Doodle
This doodle appears to be the Satanic love-child between Google Doodles 2001 and 2002. Now we have landscape (sort of) and cartoony goodness. None of it works, particularly. Noteworthy is the fact that Google finally stepped away from the math equation pumpkin="O" and changed it to kid dressed up like an egg with a sheet over his head (egg ghost?) = "O". The pumpkin has moved on to bigger and better things, namely the E. Actually, I think the pumpkin is the most interesting part of the picture.



2004 Doodle
Big change, eh? Although still with the primary colors (gak), Google starts getting creative with its big bad self. And look! No pumpkins! It seems being banished to the final "e" position in 2003 was a warning that it was about to get pushed off the page altogether. Poor, poor pumpkin. Seeya! Wouldn't wanna be ya! As punishment for five years of bad-acts with the letter "O", Google has thrown them into the bubbling cauldron of green goo with a single eyeball for flavor. The fact that Google finally stepped away from the pumpkins makes this design a huge improvement.


2005 Doodle
Better and better. Still no pumpkins, but check out the bats hanging, and the nearly washed out red "O". The "L" this year has undergone an improvement from last year's simplistic broom. The castle is pretty cool, and nice moon. Oh, and guess what? No pumpkins!


2006 Doodle
The year of the Frankengoogle. This is very cool in that you can recognize the logo (yes, primary colors, we see you), but the bandages obscure it nicely. I especially like the bolts coming out of the "o" and the skeleton hand "e" is just awesome. And once again...no pumpkins!


2007 Doodle
We've come a long way since 1999. This is downright impressive. Finally Google accepts the fact that we don't live in a cave and can easily recognize its standard logo, so it might just be alright if they make something more artistic and less "hey a pumpkin!" Kudos. Pass the Milk Duds.

Happy Googleween.

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