A day seldom goes by without a visit to Google for millions of people.
And what a treat when the Google logo on the home page is altered to celebrate anything from ice-cream sundaes to Rembrandt van Rijn’s 407th birthday.
The modified logos are referred to as Google doodles.
The UN General Assembly in 2009 designated July 18 as Nelson Mandela International Day.
As the world celebrated South Africa’s most famous statesman’s birthday last week, the day, surprisingly, was not marked by the creation of a doodle.
The latest South African doodle was designed for Freedom Day this year and Miriam Makeba’s 81st birthday was celebrated in March.
Madiba might not have had a doodle but last year Google contributed R8.6-million to the Nelson Mandela Centre for Memory to digitise “thousands of archival documents, photographs and videos” dealing with Mandela.
According to Google, there is a team of illustrators and engineers that designs its doodles.
International demand has led to an increase in the amount of artwork generated- 1000 have been created for Google’s home page.
Not every occasion is doodled. A lot depends on demand: a group of Googlers might come together to suggest a doodle or the idea can come from the general public. – timeslive.co.za