Am I the only one, or is there anyone else out there that loves the alternate Google designs? There are seemingly small things in this world that become iconic: Disney animations from my childhood, Elton John from my youth, and Seinfeld quotes from the eighties. Google designs are iconic too. I've been looking at the 226th birthday of John James Audubon. It's beautiful! It's brilliant because every time the logo changes, I search out the letters. Oh Google, you are so smart to get me to spell your name every time I look at a new logo. I'm sure that has helped your name to become the verb that it is. I'll admit, I have googled myself and I didn't find me. It was a little sad.
Am I a nerd? I've actually gone through Goggle archives and looked at all the old logos, more than once. My favorites are Jules Verne's 183rd birthday, Pac-Man's 30 Anniversary, Cezanne's 172nd birthday, Cookie Monster, and the discovery of X-rays. I wonder if there's a Google artist I favor? There are more that I love, but just go look at them yourself. Go to About Google on their main page, then click on Google logos. I don't know why I was surprised, the first time I looked there, that Google did special logos I'd never seen for countries and their holidays other than the United States. Oh, we do believe the world revolves around us in this country, don't we?
I once went to a gallery that had Disney art cels on display. They weren't yet priceless, but I was amazed at how much they were worth, more than a year's salary for me at the time. And looking at them made me so happy. I wonder if those animators knew they were creating art history? I wonder if artists and artisans think about that when they do their work? Have you ever noticed the art deco designs in some of the old bridges built in the 1920's, you know, the ones that really should have been rebuilt by now? There is art in everything, but I think my generation in the United States has been the worst at just throwing up clunky work without putting finishing touches onto it. Younger generations than mine seem to be recalling that art can be in our buildings as well as in our Internet searches. It's getting better. Even cars look a little better these days. Yup, there's art in the design of a car.
So already, they have a way to make high-quality prints of a digital image, the giclee. Does it affect the value that it will never be an original print? I'd imagine that these people create most of their work right on the computer. How could you sign a computer image? If it was my job to create a Google logo, I'd hide a signature in a few pixels of each work I did. But anyone could print up a hundred thousand copies and then what would they be worth? A hundred years from now, a giclee of one of those Google designs might be worth something, but would it be worth as much as an original cel of an old fashioned Disney animation? Hmmm. I wonder if the Google artists think about that? Do they doodle on their napkins at lunch? Do they copy their best work onto ordinary paper? Will they be like many artists and never receive the money that their work has earned?
Years ago, I was lucky enough to have worked at Bell Labs as a technical writer. I loved that place, especially because they had an entire art department and a well-rounded library. I even got to work with those artists to do book designs. It made me so happy to have that kind of creativity happening around me, to look at three or four different designs that I could choose from and know that my book was going to be beautiful. What places do you know that value art and literature enough to put that into place for their daily work? Well, Google does.
Thank you for listening, jb
Am I a nerd? I've actually gone through Goggle archives and looked at all the old logos, more than once. My favorites are Jules Verne's 183rd birthday, Pac-Man's 30 Anniversary, Cezanne's 172nd birthday, Cookie Monster, and the discovery of X-rays. I wonder if there's a Google artist I favor? There are more that I love, but just go look at them yourself. Go to About Google on their main page, then click on Google logos. I don't know why I was surprised, the first time I looked there, that Google did special logos I'd never seen for countries and their holidays other than the United States. Oh, we do believe the world revolves around us in this country, don't we?
I once went to a gallery that had Disney art cels on display. They weren't yet priceless, but I was amazed at how much they were worth, more than a year's salary for me at the time. And looking at them made me so happy. I wonder if those animators knew they were creating art history? I wonder if artists and artisans think about that when they do their work? Have you ever noticed the art deco designs in some of the old bridges built in the 1920's, you know, the ones that really should have been rebuilt by now? There is art in everything, but I think my generation in the United States has been the worst at just throwing up clunky work without putting finishing touches onto it. Younger generations than mine seem to be recalling that art can be in our buildings as well as in our Internet searches. It's getting better. Even cars look a little better these days. Yup, there's art in the design of a car.
So already, they have a way to make high-quality prints of a digital image, the giclee. Does it affect the value that it will never be an original print? I'd imagine that these people create most of their work right on the computer. How could you sign a computer image? If it was my job to create a Google logo, I'd hide a signature in a few pixels of each work I did. But anyone could print up a hundred thousand copies and then what would they be worth? A hundred years from now, a giclee of one of those Google designs might be worth something, but would it be worth as much as an original cel of an old fashioned Disney animation? Hmmm. I wonder if the Google artists think about that? Do they doodle on their napkins at lunch? Do they copy their best work onto ordinary paper? Will they be like many artists and never receive the money that their work has earned?
Years ago, I was lucky enough to have worked at Bell Labs as a technical writer. I loved that place, especially because they had an entire art department and a well-rounded library. I even got to work with those artists to do book designs. It made me so happy to have that kind of creativity happening around me, to look at three or four different designs that I could choose from and know that my book was going to be beautiful. What places do you know that value art and literature enough to put that into place for their daily work? Well, Google does.
Thank you for listening, jb
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