"Google doodle" joins ranks for Australia Day

26/01/2008 18:34

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Fireworks at Sydney’s Darling Harbour, a parade of boats whizzing by under the Harbour Bridge and, for Australia Day stay-at-homes, a Google doodle.

Australia celebrates its national day on January 26 with a swag of official events, and one of the 21st century’s ultimate anniversary markers: a customised holiday homepage on the Google search engine.

The Web site will sport a Melbourne schoolgirl’s doodle of a rusty outback shed and a kangaroo road-crossing sign on Saturday, after a 12-year-old’s depiction of outback life won the Doodle 4 Google competition last year.

Drawn by Janelle San Juan, the shed and sign, common sights in the country’s dry interior, were judged the most iconic by the man behind the cyber trend, "Google doodler" Kevin Hwang.

With just under a third of entries featuring indigenous animals such as koalas and kangaroos, the range of Down Under designs were fairly predictable.

But Australians’ genuine enthusiasm for their icons impressed U.S.-based web master Hwang. "I was blown away by the fact we had over 10,000 submissions," Hwang said in announcing the winner.

Google doodling, the customising of the plain white Web site’s central logo to mark special days or festivals, began in 2000.

Graphic artist Hwang’s first design .....continued below

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was a Bastille Day logo to mark the French national holiday that marks the July 14 anniversary of the storming of Paris’ Bastille prison in 1789.

Since then he has manipulated images of witches around the company’s six-word logo for Halloween, a shamrock for Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day, and pigs to celebrate China’s Year of the Pig in 2007.

Clicking on the logo leads searchers to a string of Google results on the topic.

While Hwang has emphasised the designs are "just for fun", some web users have complained about the Web site’s whimsical selection of dates.

In April 2007 English "netizens" accused Google of snubbing St George’s Day, after a Google doodle marked Ireland’s St Patrick’s Day on March 17, but the Web site omitted to make any mention of the day dedicated to England’s patron saint on April 23.

The last Google holiday logo was displayed four days ago, marking Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a U.S. national holiday for the civil rights leader’s birthday on January 21.

(Writing by Gillian Murdoch; Editing by James Regan)

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