With it coming up to the New Year, I thought it might be nice to look back on some of our favourite Google Doodle’s from 2011.  First of all, we’ll look at the first ever Google Doodle and see how the concept of the ‘Google Doodle’ that came to fruition within the search engine optimisation world.

The First Google Doodle:

There it is, a little slice of history – the first ever Google Doodle!  The idea was inspired by the founders of Google, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who in 1998 toyed with the idea of using the corporate logo to communicate their attendance to the ‘Burning Man’ festival in the Nevada Desert.  As a result, a stick man was placed by the second ‘o’ as a humorous way to tell Google users that the founders were ‘Out of Office’.

While it was initially supposed to be a one-off, the idea of using the Google logo to celebrate a noteworthy event was well received by users, and in 2000 a second doodle was created to commemorate Bastille Day.  After this success, they became regular features on the Google homepage, although originally they only began to acknowledge largely visible public holidays.  As Google has grown, so have their Doodles which now celebrate anniversaries, cultural achievements and celebrity birthdays – occasionally interactively.

With that little history lesson out of the way – let’s countdown our favourite Google Doodle’s from 2011.

TEN – PIERRE DE FERMAT’S 410TH BIRTHDAY – AUGUST 17TH 2011

This Google Doodle went live on August 17th 2011, and was a celebration of the birthday of influential French mathematician Pierre De Fermat.  This doodle incorporates the Google logo onto a blackboard containing Fermat’s Last Theorem, stating xn + yn = zn  – it was designed to show his belief that there is a relation which every prime number must satisfy.  His theory was later disproven.

NINE – XU BEIHONG’S 116TH BIRTHDAY – JULY 19TH 2011

This doodle celebrates the 116th birthday of the Chinese artist Xu Beihong who became famous for is Chinese ink paintings of horses and birds.  This doodle makes the list because of the way it celebrates the work of an artist not so well known to Western culture by incorporating one of his most famous images onto the Google logo.

EIGHT – COMING OF AGE DAY – JANUARY 10TH 2011

This Google Doodle celebrates the Japanese festival known as ‘Coming of Age Day’, which takes place on the second Monday of January.  The festival celebrates those who have reached the age of 20 and have become adults.  The reason I picked this doodle is that it light-heartedly and delicately celebrates maturity – something that is perhaps treated with a degree of apprehension in other cultures around the world.

SEVEN – THOMAS EDISON’S 164th BIRTHDAY – FEBRUARY 2011

Although this doodle celebrating the 164th birthday of American Inventor, Thomas Edison, is not interactive, it does contain several moving parts that illustrate ‘The Wizard of Menlo Park’s’ contribution to inventing a lightbulb practical for home use.  The reason I chose this Google Doodle for the list is that it captures the essence of a brilliant invention that is often taken for granted while maintaining the sense of whimsy and fun that is apparent in many doodles.

SIX – JULES VERNE’S 183RD BIRTHDAY – FEBRUARY 8TH 2011

This Google Doodle celebrating the 183rd birthday of French science-fiction writer, Jules Verne, is the first interactive logo on our top 10 list.  The Google logo becomes transformed into a series of portholes belonging to a submarine whose depth and direction can be controlled directly by the user.  This interactive capability allows us to explore the underwater panorama that Google created in homage to Verne’s famous novel, ’20,000 Leagues Under The Sea’.  Click this link to go to the fully functioning Jules Verne Google Doodle.

FIVE – FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL – SEPTEMBER 1ST 2011

This particular Google Doodle was shown in various countries across the world when the majority of kids were getting ready for, or attending school for the first time after their summer holidays.  This doodle captures the innocence of school-life, and I think is well worthy of capturing the number 5 spot in our list.

FOUR – 122ND BIRTHDAY OF CHARLIE CHAPLIN – APRIL 16TH 2011

This animated doodle celebrates the 122nd birthday of Charlie Chaplin through a video that captures the unique comedy stylings of the silent movie era pioneer.  The video wonderfully encapsulates everything that made Chaplin an icon without any hint of irony or pretence, and is deservingly awarded the title of SEO Consult’s fourth best Google Doodle 2011.  The full video can be seen here.

THREE – LES PAUL’S 96TH BIRTHDAY – 9TH JULY 2011

This Google Doodle rightfully honours the 96th birthday of Les Paul, a guitar playing and building legend whose influence on modern music is largely under appreciated by contemporary consumers.  This interactive electric guitar allows users to play and record their own music by either plucking the strings with their cursor or hitting buttons on their keyboard.  It’s brilliant fun and incredibly inventive, and despite the fact it allegedly cost the world $268 million in lost productivity, here at SEO Consult we love it and think it’s a great fit for the number 3 spot.  Follow the link to play the celebratory Les Paul Google Doodle.

TWO – FREDDIE MERCURY’S 65TH BIRTHDAY – SEPTEMBER 5TH 2011

This brilliant animated Google Doodle commemorates the birthday of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury who, had he been alive in 2011, would have been collecting his government issued bus pass.  As a viewer, we see an animated version of Queen playing ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ in front of an audience before Freddie is shot into the sky and we are taken through an 8-bit graphical interpretation of lines from the song – ‘a superman leaping through the sky like a tiger’, for example.  It would be great if everyone clicked this link to see the full video in all its glory.

It seemed right that a doodle commemorating one of the most iconic frontmen in music should rank highly in our list, but there was only one that could just about beat it to the number 1 spot….*drumroll please*….

ONE – JIM HENSON’S 75TH BIRTHDAY – SEPTEMBER 24TH 2011

We think this is the best doodle of the year, and this is our logic – Jim Henson created The Muppets, and if you don’t like The Muppets you don’t have a soul…and everyone has a soul, so therefore everyone has to like this Google Doodle, right?  This collaboration between Google and The Jim Henson Company lets us become the puppeteer of six original Jim Henson creations.  The character colour and shapes all correspond with the letters in the traditional Google logo, and the puppets themselves make no sound, but that’s because you’re the puppeteer so you make the noises.  There’s even a few hidden animations in here, but I’ll let you figure those out for yourselves.  In memory of Jim Henson, and because of the upcoming return of The Muppets, the only place we could find for this doodle was as our number one.

So, that concludes our top 10 Google Doodle’s of 2011.  Honourable mentions go to the Alex Calder’s 113th Birthday doodle, the Google Halloween doodle and the 2011 Doodle4Google US winner.  If you think I’ve missed any off the list then why not leave your suggestions over at our twitter account @ClickConsult, or just leave a comment.  I look forward to hearing what your top 10 Google Doodle’s of 2011 have been.

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