Image via Complex Original
On August 30, 1998, Google employees ditched work and headed to Burning Man, the hippie gathering in Black Rock Desert, NV. They left a cryptic message on Google's homepage: Burning Man's symbol behind their logo. So rose the first Google doodle. "There was no master plan for doodles at that point," leader of the Google doodle team Ryan Germick told Time Magazine.
Google doodles have since evolved, playing on designer Ruth Kedar's official red, blue, yellow, and green Catull typeface logo. From slight alterations to the search engine's homepage, to elaborate interactive and animated graphics, we give you The Best Art and Design Google Doodles Ever Created.
RELATED: The 30 Best Google Doodles of All Time
RELATED: 50 Influential Graphic Designers to Follow on Twitter
RELATED: 25 Young Designers to Watch
Claude Monet
37. Claude Monet
Date: November 14, 2001
After releasing its cryptic Burning Man doodle, Google hired the company's first doodle designer, Dennis Hwang, to create a Google Doodle for Monet's birthday. Hwang did not stray much from the company's logo but instead used a blurred aesthetic found in Monet's Impressionist paintings.
Vincent van Gogh
36. Vincent van Gogh
Date: March 30, 2005
By the time Google released its van Gogh doodle, the company had began experimenting more freely with the homepage. Similar to the Monet doodle, this one relied on van Gogh's unmistakable style to create Google's version of The Starry Night.
Leonardo Da Vinci
34. Leonardo da Vinci
Date: April 15, 2005
The master inventor da Vinci received a Google doodle that reproduced sketches of his creations, including Mona Lisa, Vitruvian Man, and designs for a flying machine. The graphic was in red to mimic da Vinci's occasionally medium of red chalk.
Jackson Pollock
34. Jackson Pollock
Date: January 28, 2009
Google paid homage to Pollock with one of the artist's iconic drip paintings. At this point, the company had begun to abstract their logo beyond recognition.
Shepard Fairey
33. Shepard Fairey
Date: January 19, 2009
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Google called on street artist Shepard Fairey to create a doodle. Fairey decorated the Google homepage using tropes from his murals.
Bob Ross
35. Bob Ross
Date: October 29, 2012
To celebrate Bob Ross' 70th birthday, Google created a doodle featuring the cheesy but lovable TV personality. Starting in 1983 Ross taught PBS viewers how to paint—or perfect a kitsch landscape—for over a decade.
Auguste Rodin
31. Auguste Rodin
Date: November 12, 2012
At the end of the 1800s, sculptor Rodin moved away from perfect forms of Classical sculpture in favor of an aesthetic that was almost modern, mixing styles and leaving parts of his works unfinished. His seated man, The Thinker is probably his most famous sculpture, and Google used it to celebrate the French artist.
Mary Blair
30. Mary Blair
Date: October 21, 2011
Mary Blair is most famous for her creations for the Walt Disney Company including concept art for the films Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Cinderella. Her Google doodle features a drawing of the artist in her own style.
Will Eisner
29. Will Eisner
Date: March 6, 2011
Before comic artist Will Eisner rose to fame, we didn't have graphic novels. The American cartoonist popularized the medium with his comic book series The Spirit in the 1940s and 50s. Google celebrated Eisner with a doodle featuring the masked crime fighter from Eisner's comics.
Louis Daguerre
28. Louis Daguerre
Date: November 17, 2011
Louis Daguerre is hailed as the grandfather of photography for his invention of the daguerrotype in the 1830s, the first photographic process. One of his popular subjects was his family, and here Google uses one of his family portraits for its doodle.
Joze Plecnik
27. Jože Plečnik
Date: Jan 23, 2012
Plecnick was the architect famous for rejuvenating Ljubljana, Slovenia with his constructions during the early 1900s. His most famous work was the iconic Triple Bridge featured in this Google doodle.
Lola Mora
26. Lola Mora
Date: November 17, 2011
Google depicted Argentinian sculptor and painter Lola Mora sculpting herself out of stone for this doodle. Mora worked at the turn of the century, creating public stone sculptures that depicted allegorical figures as well as Argentinian history.
Edward Gorey
25. Edward Gorey
Date: February 22, 2013
Gorey's macabre illustrations are both strange and wonderful. Although he may not be a household name, the cult author has a dedicated following. Google used some of his illustrated figures for this doodle on Gorey's 88th birthday.
Rene Magritte
24. René Magritte
Date: November 21, 2009
For this Surrealist painter's Google doodle, the company created an image using Magritte's classic imagery, including clouds, apples, and rainfall. The central letter "O" is a homage to Magritte's The Son of Man.
Antoni Gaudi
23. Antoni Gaudí
Date: June 25, 2013
Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí pushed the limits of modern architecture creating buildings with whimsical structures that stretched and bent across space in ways never seen before. For his Google doodle, the search engine took details from six of the architect's constructions.
Giorgio Vasari
22. Giorgio Vasari
Date: July 30, 2011
Honoring the 16th century architect, painter and writer whose work Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects set the foundation for art historical writing, Google developed a doodle that was so popular, it was reproduced on T-shirts, mugs, and totes.
image via
Rembrandt
21. Rembrandt
Date: July 15, 2013
This week Google honored the Dutch master himself with a doodle on Rembrandt's 100th birthday. The graphic featured the artist's famous self-portrait.
Marimekko
20. Marimekko
Date: March 20, 2012
Founded in 1951, Marimekko is a Finnish design company that still produces colorful prints with a childlike charm. For the first day of spring in 2012, Marimekko designed a Google doodle using some of the design company's favorite motifs.
Maria Sibylla Merian
19. Maria Sibylla Merian
Date: April 2, 2013
For Google's most precise and arguably prettiest doodle, the company honored Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th century German naturalist. Her extremely detailed images of nature captured and recorded flora and fauna before photographs were able to do so.
Diego Rivera
18. Diego Rivera
Date: December 8, 2011
Mexican muralist Diego Rivera painted scenes of revolution, tradition and community. Google tried its hand at a Rivera-esque mural for the artist's 125th birthday.
Mies Van Der Rohe
17. Mies van der Rohe
Date: March 27, 2012
One of the celebrities of Modernism, Mies van der Rohe created streamlined buildings using simplified structures and essential forms. For their doodle honoring the architecture master, Google mimicked one of his buildings, S. R. Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Juan Gris
16. Juan Gris
Date: March 23, 2012
The unsung hero of Cubism, Spanish painter Juan Gris was overshadowed by Picasso, yet he was one of the forerunners of the movement. For Gris' 125th birthday, Google designed a doodle in the Cubist style that the artist helped develop.
Robert Indiana
15. Robert Indiana
Date: February 14, 2011
For Valentine's Day in 2011, Google used Robert Indiana's iconic LOVE sculpture as the inspiration for its holiday doodle. Indiana's letter block statue has appeared in various forms across the world and has often been a source for various interpretations in contemporary art.
Robert Doisneau
14. Robert Doisneau
Date: April 14, 2012
French photographer Robert Doisneau trained his camera on the streets of Paris in the 1950s, capturing life as it really was in the romantic city. This Google doodle features a photo-collage of Doisneau's iconic images, including Le baiser de l'hôtel de ville (The Kiss), one of the most famous kissing photographs of all time.
Akira Yoshizawa
13. Akira Yoshizawa
Date: March 14, 2012
Known as the master of origami, Akira Yoshizawa's intricate creations were the inspiration for this Google doodle, which celebrated the Japanese artist's 101st birthday. Yoshizawa is credited for popularizing the paper art.
Peter Carl Faberge
12. Peter Carl Fabergé
Date: May 30, 2012
For possibly its most ornate Google doodle, the search engine did justice to Peter Carl Fabergé's famous designs with six bejeweled Fabregé eggs. The Russian eggs, designed between 1885 and 1917, are some of the most expensive decorative art pieces today.
Gio Pomodoro
11. Giò Pomodoro
Date: November 17, 2011
Google Italy created this shimmering doodle for the sculptor Gio Pomodoro's 81st birthday. Pomodoro did most of his work in the 1950s and 60s, including large abstract sculptures and outdoor installation in metal.
Frida Kahlo
10. Frida Kahlo
Date: July 6, 2010
Not only did her lover Diego Rivera get a Google doodle, but Frida Kahlo was honored with a doodle of her own. To celebrate the Mexican painter's birthday, Google released a doodle featuring one of Kahlo's self-portraits. The graphic included lush foliage that appears in many of Kahlo's works as well as her signature unibrow, of course.
image via
Alphonse Mucha
9. Alphonse Mucha
Date: July 24, 2010
You might recognize Alphonse Mucha's art nouveau posters that feature fairy tale women with lots of absinthe. Mucha's works are still replicated as nostalgia pieces in coffee shops and dorm rooms. For the Czech artist's 150th birthday, Google designed a doodle in his unmistakable style.
Eadweard Muybridge
8. Eadweard Muybridge
Date: April 9, 2012
While Google's doodle for Muybridge's 182nd birthday is not so exciting at rest, when the graphic was clicked, the horses galloped into motion. A British photographer, Muybridge combined his still images to make sophisticated flipbooks that were essentially the first moving pictures. This Google doodle mimics his work Sallie Gardner at a Gallop.
image via
Gustav Klimt
7. Gustav Klimt
Date: July 14, 2012
Google created a version of Gustav Klimt's most famous painting The Kiss to honor what would've been the Austrian symbolist's 150th birthday. Klimt's amorphous couple becomes the foreground for a gold-plated doodle.
Takashi Murakami
6. Takashi Murakami
Date: June 21, 2011
Who better than Murakami to celebrate the first day of the summer in flower power style? The Japanese pop artist designed this Google doodle for the Summer Solstice in 2011. Murakami himself dreamed up this colorful creation using his iconic cartoonish style.
Keith Haring
5. Keith Haring
Date: May 4, 2012
One of the '80s downtown artists in New York City, Keith Haring depicted the vibrant street culture of the city in his graphics. His technicolor works featured cartoonish figures that danced and grooved across his canvases. Google used Haring's iconic 2D figures to spell out the company's name. The animated drawings swayed across the screen with the same dynamism that Haring brought to his drawings.
Brancusi
4. Constantine Brancusi
Date: February 19, 2011
To celebrate the eccentric Romanian sculptor Brancusi's 135th brithday, Google designed a doodle that featured seven of the artist's sculptures. Brancusi's carved forms mixed sleek modern design of the early 1900s with primitive sculpture from exotic lands.
Alexander Calder
3. Alexander Calder
Date: July 22, 2011
Calder's Google doodle is a whimsical delight. Celebrating the inventor of the mobile, the doodle shows the company's logo as one of the artist's hanging designs. The interactive doodle spun like a true mobile when scrolled over with a curser.
Martha Graham
2. Martha Graham
Date: May 11, 2011
The rebel Martha Graham broke with the strict tradition of 19th century ballet, essentially inventing modern dance and setting the stage for what we know as contemporary dance today. To celebrate the dancer's 117th birthday, Google created a seamless animation of a woman dancing to form the company's letters.
image via
Saul Bass
1. Saul Bass
Date: May 8, 2013
Graphic design master Saul Bass designed film credits and movie posters for the likes of Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, and Martin Scorsese. His posters look like Kandinsky's woodcut prints for Der Blaue Reiter or Banksy's stencil graffiti. For Bass's 93rd birthday in May, Google's doodle mimicked the designer's signature style, with an animation that looked like one of Bass's opening credits.
