London 2012 Hurdles Doodle (August 8, 2012)

After a few static doodles, Google finally gave us what we were all waiting for: interactive, animated doodles! I was really hoping that the company would gift us with one of us, since the times they did it, they came out really good. We all remember the Pacman Doodle from a couple of months before.

This time, the sport that is being tributed is Hurdles, which had already been used in Athens 2004, but nowhere else. Here is that old doodle:

Athens 2004 Hurdles doodle

No doubt we have a winner on which is best here, and I hope for the next few days google surprises us with more interactive doodles. How far can you get? I am struggling to get past the silver medal!

London 2012 Fencing Doodle (July 30, 2012)

Continuing withllympic doodle series, Google has gifted us today with a very nice looking doodle, celebrating the sport called fencing. Here it is:

2012 Olympic Fencing Doodle

Although the characters on it look a bit like astronauts in my opinion, the doodle itself looks overall pretty good, with a nice color choice, and the detail of one of the contenders using the "l" from Google as a sword. I have to say that, along with the diving doodle, this has been so far my favorite.

Still, this is not the first doodle in commemoration of this sport that we have seen. On Athens 2004's Olympic games, we had this:

2004 Olympic Fencing Doodle

Although the image is much smaller, and clearly a bit more rustic (like all doodles from those times), I find the characters quite nice, and actually like it better than the new one. What do you people think?

London 2012 Diving Doodle (July 29, 2012)

When I saw this doodle todaI immediately thought of swimming, but after hovering my mouse over it, i realized that today's doodle is related to diving.

2012 Olympic Diving Doodle

A olympic sport, it was first introduced in 1904, at the St. Louis Olympic Games in the US, and have remained since. It was then known as "fancy diving", because of the stunts performed by the athletes that practice this discipline.

I have to say, this doodle is, so far, the one that I have liked the most from this olympic series.  In truth, although I found the first one quite unappealing, they have improved by a lot. It certainly is a big improvement over the one that was used for the 2008 Beijng Olympic games, which for *some* reason has a gg on it. Check it out:

2008 Olympic Diving Doodle

The 2000 Olympic doodle related to diving also featured an animal, but this time a kangaroo which is clearly associated with Australia, the host country, so I guess it makes a lot more sense.

2000 Olympic Diving Doodle

Father's Day Doodle (June 23rd, 2012)

On June 23, in Poland, Google decided to honor that country's date for the Father's Day with this cute doodle. I am taking the opportunity to tell you people a bit about  the origin of this day.

Apparently, the idea occured to a woman named Sonora Smart Dodd, from Washington, who wanted to pay tribute to his father, a war veteran names Henry Jackson Smart, who after his wife passed, devoted his life to taking care of his children, fulfilling the role both as a father and a mother, as best as he could. The date is chosen after the birthday of Henry J. Smart, which was on June 5th. Some time after the initiative was first proposed, US president Lyndon Johnson took the decision of instituting the 3rd Sunday of June as Father's Day, and that costume remains in much of the western world.

London 2012 Archery Doodle (July 28, 2012)

Keeping along with the Olympic theme, Google published a doodle related to Archery. Here it is.

2012 Olympic Archery Doodle

As it happened with the Opening Ceremony doodle, this is not the first time that this sport is featured on thoogle main site, however, it didn't show up on 2008 during Beijing's games. It was, however, shown on 2004 Athen's games:

2004 Olympic Archery Doodle

This time around, I do like the new design better. It obviously has a lot more work into it, and although the 2004 is also nice, it looks way too much like Sydney 200's Olympic games, where this sport was also featured:

2000 Olympic Archery Doodle

Archery as a sport, is a sport that focuses in shooting arrows at a target, with its objective being having the highest possible accuracy from a set distance. This is called "target archery" and is the one that is practiced at the olympic games. It was precisely on archery that the first medal was won at London's 2012 games, by a chinese athlete.

Olympic Games Opening Ceremony (July 27, 2012)

On this day, Google made a doodle which surprised me quite a bit. For one of the most important events in the year, worldwide, they used a pretty simple doodle. Here it is:

2012 London Olympic Games

Clearly, it simbolizes the spirit of every race in the world competing in different sports, but I am not so sure that the magnitude of the event is actually simbolized in such a simple doodle. The art is nothing amazing either. I think that the 2008 doodle for this event was a bit better. Judge yourselves:

2008 Beijing Olympic Games Doodle

Although smaller, I think it had more to do with the ceremony in itself, and the art is way more original too. Still, you could say that the new one makes better use of colors, and better represents the spirit of the competition, but I feel it falls a bit short. I even liked the 2004 doodle better:

2004 Athens Olympic Games Doodle.

Certainly these doodles have improved a lot over the first ones, as you can see here in the doodle from the year 2000:

2000 Sidney Olympic Games Doodle

This doodles are great to see how much google has progressed on their doodles, and how a lot more work has been put into them as time passed. In the next days, Google will upload different doodles referencing different olympic disciplines, so look out for daily updates for the next month or so.

See ya!

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 300th Birthday Doodle (June 28th, 2012)

On June 20, Google made this gorgeous doodle to pay tribute to one of the fathers of liberalism and modern national states: Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland, on 1712, he was a writer, phillosopher and musician, of french heritage, he was an integral part of the illuminist movement that shook europe on the XVIII century. In facy of his ideas where greatly influential during the French Revolution, conspiring to create a nationalist and republican feeling throughout the "common people".

Portrait of J.J. Rousseau.

Rousseau is commonly studied by practically every student in the world, mainly because of the "social contract" theory, and his claim that man is, by nature, good-willed.