Yabba Dabba doodle!

As a young kid, I drew a lot of dinosaurs. My dad would bring home reams of dot matrix printer paper from work, which I'd take, fold into stapled booklets, and then fill with dinosaurs doing what dinosaurs did—eating, leaping about, facing off in epic combat on top of spewing volcanoes. What I didn't know was that dinosaurs were also quite handy. A brontosaurus tail made an excellent water slide, you could walk up a row of plates on a stegosaurus' back like a flight of stairs and the triceratops’ horns were actually cutting-edge can openers. For these paleontological insights into Stone Aged innovation, I have the Flintstones to thank.

The Flintstones may have lived in the prehistoric town of Bedrock, but their technology was on par with much of what we use today. Everyone drove human-powered vehicles (zero emissions!), composted scraps in a dinosaur under the kitchen sink, and even wore solar powered watches—that is, if you count sundials. In short, Bedrock was the modern city of the past... and I wanted to live in it! Unfortunately, that didn’t quite pan out, but to be able to pay tribute to one of my favorite childhood TV shows in the form of a Google doodle is easily the next best thing.


On the 50th anniversary of its first airing, we gladly salute “The Flintstones” for inspiring our imaginations and encouraging us to think outside of the box, even if it means taking a look back now and then. I hope you’ll join the rest of us here at Google in a little nostalgia to mark this fun occasion!

Oh, and if you know any saber-toothed tigers looking for an internship as a hole puncher, give me a buzz.

Posted by Mike Dutton, Google Doodler

Vote for the international “I love football” Doodle 4 Google winner

In April, we invited young artists in 17 countries to create a Google doodle based on the theme “I love football.” Since then, more than 35,000 children in Australia, Germany, Ghana, South Korea, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Czech Republic, Kenya, UAE and Israel have created original designs for this first-ever international doodling competition.


From footballs to goalposts, we saw some truly creative designs that prove just how much you can do with an “l,” an “e,” and a couple “o’s” and “g’s.” In the past two weeks, the winner of each country’s competition had their design shown on their country’s homepage for a day. Now, we need help deciding which of these top doodlers’ artwork will be featured on the Google homepage of all 17 participating countries on July 11. You can vote for the international winner from June 21 until June 28—visit this site to weigh in.

The winning doodler will receive a trip to South Africa for themselves and their family, offered by the South Africa Tourism Board. And the runner-up will win two VIP tickets to a Premiere League football match in the U.K. offered by Sports New Media.

So whether you’re an art lover or a football lover—vote for your favorite doodle today!

Posted by Anat S. Amir, Head of Marketing, Google Africa

The 2010 Doodle 4 Google winner: Makenzie Melton’s Rainforest Habitat

Your millions of online votes helped us pick the winners of this year's Doodle 4 Google competition. Today, we're pleased to announce the results.

Congratulations to Makenzie Melton, a third grader at El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools in El Dorado Springs, Missouri. Her winning design, entitled "Rainforest Habitat,” expressed her concern that "the rainforest is in danger and it is not fair to the plants and animals.” Makenzie’s design triumphed over more than 33,000 student submissions from all over the country. Makenzie’s colored-pencil creation beautifully embodied this year’s theme.


Makenzie received a $15,000 college scholarship, a netbook computer and a $25,000 technology grant for a new computer lab at her school. Her doodle will also be featured on the Google.com homepage tomorrow, May 27, for millions of people to enjoy all across the country.

Our congratulations also go out to other three national finalists. They were selected as having the best doodle in their grade groups by the online public vote, and each student will receive a netbook computer:

Grades 4-6
Raymundo Marquez, Grade 6, of Nellie Mae Glass Elementary, Eagle Pass, Texas for his doodle entitled "Save Our Rainforest." The background of Raymundo’s work depicts deforestation and the effects it can have on our land. He says, “we will eventually have less oxygen and clean air. We need to unite to protect not just our lives, but the lives of all the rare and beautiful plants and animals that live there.”

Grades 7-9
Vance Viggiano, Grade 7, Heritage Home School Academy, Long Valley, New Jersey, for his doodle entitled "The Love of Art." Vance says, “If I could do anything, I would... enrich the world with an intense passion for art and the everlasting joy it provides. Art embodies the creator's expression, and offers exquisite exuberance towards both the artist and the viewers, also serving to soothe an ailing soul in distress.”

Grades 10-12
Bevan Schiffli, Grade 11, Highlands School, Highlands, North Carolina, for her doodle entitled "Branch Out." Bevan says, “My doodle expresses my desire to understand other views and cultures. I want to branch out to gain a strong sense of the world; not only in one perspective, but many. My wish is to show people my experiences through a pursuit of art/design in my future career.”

Our four winners were announced at an event today at the Google New York office and were celebrated at the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where we also unveiled an exhibit of the 40 regional winners that will be on view until August 15, 2010. The finalists were treated to a day in New York City, including doodle classes with our doodle team and the opportunity to meet some of this year’s expert jurors who helped judge this year’s final doodles around the theme “If I Could Do Anything, I Would..." Judges at today’s event were well known artists and animators from Disney, the Charles M. Schulz Creative Associates and Peanuts gang, Barbie/Matell and the Sesame Street Workshop.

A special thanks to all those who voted and helped us select this year's winner. Thank you to all those creative kids out there who submitted entries — and the teachers and principals who work so hard to get their students recognized. We hope you'll doodle with us next year!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products and User Experience

PAC-MAN rules!

We've been overwhelmed — but not surprised :) — by the success of our 30th anniversary PAC-MAN doodle. Due to popular demand, we’re making the game permanently available at www.google.com/pacman.

Thanks to NAMCO for helping to make this wonderful collaboration happen. Enjoy!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

Celebrating PAC-MAN’s 30th birthday

When I was growing up, my dad had the best job I could possibly imagine: he was an arcade game and pinball technician. For me, that meant summer trips through Poland’s coastal cities with their seasonal arcade parlors; peeking inside cabinets to learn programming and engineering secrets; and—of course—free games!

One of my favorites was PAC-MAN, whose popularity transcended the geopolitical barriers of that time. During the heyday of space shooters, Tōru Iwatani’s creation stood out as one of the first video games aimed at a broader audience, with a cute story of pizza-shaped character gobbling dots in a maze, colorful (literally!) characters, friendly design, very little violence and everlasting fun.

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. To play the game, go to google.com during the next 48 hours (because it’s too cool to keep for just one day) and either press the “Insert Coin” button or just wait for a few seconds.

Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include PAC-MAN’s original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts’ individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980’s masterpiece. We also added a little easter egg: if you throw in another coin, Ms. PAC-MAN joins the party and you can play together with someone else (PAC-MAN is controlled with arrow keys or by clicking on the maze, Ms. PAC-MAN using the WASD keys).

PAC-MAN™ & ©1980 NAMCO BANDAI Games Inc.

PAC-MAN seems like a natural fit for the Google homepage. They’re both deceptively straightforward, carefully hiding their complexity under the hood. There’s a light-hearted, human touch to both of them. And we can only hope you find using Google at least a quarter as enjoyable as eating dots and chasing ghosts. You know, without actually needing any quarters.

Posted by Marcin Wichary, senior UX designer and developer

Doodle 4 Google, meet the 40 Regional Finalists (we did!)

For the first time ever, as part of this year’s Doodle 4 Google competition, we’re heading straight to classrooms all across the United States. From Gig Harbor, WA to Niceville, FL, Googlers are visiting the schools of our top 40 Regional Finalists to celebrate art and technology with thousands of K-12 students and teachers.

With our top 40 Regional Finalists unveiled, it’s now your turn to vote on the top 40 doodles! Starting at 6:00 a.m. PDT today through May 25 at 5:00 p.m. PDT, you can cast your online votes for your favorite Regional Finalist’s doodle (one from each of the four grade groups). On May 26, we’ll announce the national winner at our awards ceremony in New York City, and the winning design will appear on google.com on Thursday, May 27. The national winner will also receive a $15,000 college scholarship and $25,000 towards a new computer lab for their school.

The Doodle 4 Google contest is all about designing and dreaming big, and this year we asked students to design our Google logo with the theme, “If I Could Do Anything, I Would...” More than 33,000 submissions poured in from all 50 states, and we were absolutely delighted by the creativity and talent of the submissions we saw. How exactly did we get from 33,000 to the top 40? We were lucky to have in our judging process not only Google employees but also 12 Expert Jurors, well-known cartoonists and animators from companies like Disney, Pixar Animation Studios and The Peanuts Gang/Charles Schulz.

In addition to our top 40 Regional Finalists, we’d like to congratulate the 400 State Finalists as well as our Extra Credit Technology Booster award winners.

Doodle 4 Google wouldn’t have been possible without the help and guidance of teachers and administrators who work hard every day to encourage art and creativity in the classroom — it is this sort of creativity that will lead to tomorrow's designers, technologists and engineers.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience

Doodle 4 Google — Tell us what you would do if you could do anything...

Today, we're excited to announce our third annual Doodle 4 Google contest in the U.S. Google doodles, created by our talented team of doodlers, have helped us celebrate events and anniversaries from Van Gogh's birthday to Valentine's Day. And since 2008, Doodle 4 Google has given K-12 kids the opportunity to create their own logo and have it displayed on the Google homepage for hundreds of millions of users to enjoy for a day.

In addition to the winner's art appearing on Google.com on May 27, 2010, they'll also receive a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop computer and a $25,000 technology grant for their school.

This year's theme is "If I Could Do Anything, I Would..." and it's all about pushing the limits, dreaming big, and seeing what you can accomplish in life. When coming up with inspiration for this year's contest, we turned to some of our very own Googlers, including Ed Lu, a former astronaut.

Ed typifies this year's theme in action, and shares an inspiring anecdote:

On my first mission STS-84, one of my crewmates and I were having dinner aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis. After all our work for the day was done, we decided to eat "upside down" on the ceiling, gazing out at the Earth moving by below our feet. As we flew around the Earth, watching the continents go by, my crewmate remarked how amazingly large the Earth really is. But at that same time, it also felt small to us. There we were, flying at 18,000 miles per hour around the Earth in a machine built by humans, with a crew made up of astronauts from all over the world. Both of our observations were true at the same time. The world is indeed a big place with many challenges. But by using science, technology and the power of people working together, nearly anything is possible.

So dream big! If you could do anything, what would you do?

For even more inspiration, you can see last year's winner, Christin Engelberth, a sixth grader at Bernard Harris Middle School in San Antonio, Texas. She titled her doodle "A New Beginning" to express her wish that "out of the current crisis, discoveries will be found to help the Earth prosper once more."

We're happy to let you know that this year, we've also assembled a panel of well-known "Expert Jurors," including creative directors, cartoonists and famous animators ranging from Sesame Workshop to Pixar Animation Studios. Our Expert Jurors will help us narrow down the cream of the crop to 40 regional finalists, who will come to the Google office in New York City on May 26, 2010. For the second year, we'll also be partnering with the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, where the top 40 regional finalists will get to have their artwork displayed in a national exhibit. And for the first time this year, we'll give out eight Technology Booster awards to schools that submit maximum number of doodles per school by March 10th and have students in our 400 State Finalists.

Please visit the official competition website for a full listing of all contest rules and requirements. Only students from registered schools can enter, so be sure your school is registered by March 17, 2010. All doodles must be submitted by March 31, 2010.

We hope you're as excited about this year's contest as we are. Good luck!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience and Ed Lu, Program Manager, Advanced Projects

Happy 40th birthday Sesame Street!

It's hard to believe, but today marks the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street! Over the past four decades, Sesame Street has been entertaining and educating children all across the world. To pay tribute to the colorful cast of characters, we've been delighted to feature some of your favorites on the Google homepage during the past week. With this effort, we're honored to help support Sesame Workshop, the non-profit organization behind Sesame Street. It's always great to see the spotlight on children's education, and we hope you enjoyed the homepage doodles as much as we did.

And, we have an exciting birthday surprise — for this very special celebration, we're happy to share a high-resolution gallery that includes all of the Sesame Street doodles for you to download. Almost as fun as the doodles themselves, there's even a sneak peak into the photo shoot that yielded today's doodle. As an added bonus, you'll also find a few extra characters that spent some time in other countries.

From Oscar to Elmo, the whole gang had a ton of fun hanging out with Google this week. So, enjoy the full series again, change your desktop background, hang them around your desk, and join us in celebrating Sesame Street!

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience

A la peanut butter sandwiches!

Google doodles celebrate events and anniversaries around the world, while reflecting the personality, interests and quirkiness of Google employees. Today, you likely noticed a pair of familiar feet on the Google homepage. Leading up to Sesame Street's 40th anniversary on November 10th, we're excited to be featuring some of our favorite characters over the next seven days. Today: Big Bird!

Many Googlers grew up on Sesame Street, watching the colorful, seamless blend of education and entertainment. We're delighted to have partnered with Sesame Street to create this special series of doodles, particularly since we share the same values of education, diversity and accessibility. And here's a fun find from the crew at Sesame; they found a little known video clip of Cookie Monster singing about Google (rhyming it with bugle) way back in 1982 — 16 years before our company even existed.



So, happy 40th anniversary, Sesame Street. For those Sesame lovers out there, be sure to check back as we'll feature a different character each day.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience

A mysterious series for H.G. Wells

You might have noticed an unexplained set of doodles on the Google homepage and a couple tweets from our official Twitter stream, @google, over the last two weeks. On September 5th, we posted a doodle with the abduction of our second 'o' and a coded tweet from its alien captors: 1.12.12 25.15.21.18 15 1.18.5 2.5.12.15.14.7 20.15 21.19, which translates into "All your O are belong to us" (a nod to the Japanese video game, Zero Wing).

We were delighted that people around the world played along with us and shared their theories for why we would have posted this "unexplained phenomenon."

Ten days later, the UFO returned. This time, it was to leave its mysterious mark on the fields.

While the link from the doodle to a search for "crop circles" didn't provide any more clues, we also tweeted the lat/long coordinates of Horsell Commons, the location of the first alien landing in H.G. Wells 1898 classic, The War of the Worlds. Some of you figured out what we were doing, but we weren't ready to reveal it all just yet.

Now, we're finally acknowledging the reason for the doodles with an official nod to Herbert George, who would be 143 years old today. 

Inspiration for innovation in technology and design can come from lots of places; we wanted to celebrate H.G. Wells as an author who encouraged fantastical thinking about what is possible, on this planet and beyond. And maybe have some fun while we were doing it.

The invasion of the logo by alien crafts and pods makes our series complete, but you'll have to read the book to find out how Wells' story really ends.

Posted by Micheal Lopez, Web Design Lead