List of Google Doodles in 2012

This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Only Google Doodles that have appeared on the main site or have sufficient media coverage are listed here.

See also: Lists of Google Doodles

The Google Doodle is an artistic version of the Google logo. Google Doodles represent events like holidays, anniversaries, or current events. Some of the doodles were limited to Google's country specific home pages while others appeared globally.

Google had posted about 260 doodles in the year 2011. In 2012, Google continued its trend to doodle on the occasion of New Year. The New Year doodle, in fact was a continuation of the Google Doodle featured on December 31, 2011. Also there was an increase in the number of doodles presented this year, which included a series of doodles dedicated to the 2012 London Olympics. 2012 also saw many innovative and interactive doodles featured on the main page. One of those was a zipper doodle, to celebrate 132nd birthday of Gideon Sundback, inventor of the practical version of the zipper.

January

January 1

This was a continuation of the Google Doodle first featured on December 31, 2011, where Google redecorated its logo for New Year's Day 2012 with its illustrations and re-imaginations of "Google". The redecorated doodle featured the word "Google", where first "G" is listening to music and saying "hello" to the world in different languages, the "0s" are getting set for a fitter year with aerobics and yoga, while the second "G" of the word "Google" has taken to the guitar. "L" featured literature and "E" was seen cleaning up after the merrymaking.

January 7

Google celebrated the 100th birthday of American cartoonist Charles Addams. The doodle consists of his most famous creation, The Addams Family.

January 11

The Google doodle featured a cross section of the earth's crust to commemorate Nicolas Steno on his 374th birthday (New Style), removing the Catull font for a day.

January 16

Google celebrated the 26th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a doodle featuring quotes from Luther King, removing the Catull font and orange and green colors for a day. The doodle, designed by Faith Ringgold, featured Martin Luther King, Jr 1963 speech: "I have a dream that my four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin," "I have a dream today" and "We shall overcome someday", surrounded Google's red, white, and blue ribbons signifying unity, with King's cartoon likeness was depicted preaching.

January 18

• Google, in the United States opted to black out their logo, with a black tape and with no unique sketching or animations, showing their opposition to the two bills, SOPA and PIPA, that were being proposed. Clicking on the "censored" doodle took clickers to the site-sponsored call-to-action page that explained the downsides of SOPA and PIPA and asked readers to sign a petition protesting the two bills.
• Australia, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Taiwan and the United Kingdom had a Google Doodle to celebrate the 112th birthday of the Wan brothers, who directed an animation series based on the story Havoc in Heaven and the character The Monkey King.

January 23

Google celebrated the 140th birthday of Slovenian architect Jože Plečnik with a doodle featuring one of his prominent creations, the Triple Bridge.

January 26

Google celebrated India's 63rd Republic Day, which marks the anniversary of adoption of the Constitution of India with a doodle images of elephants and tri-coloured umbrellas decorating the word 'Google'. Three joyful elephants denoted the health of Indian culture and Indian economy. The three umbrellas had saffron, white and green colour on them that gave the look and feel of the Indian flag. The letter 'O' appeared like the Ashoka Chakra.

January 28

Google marked the 125th anniversary of the largest recorded snowflake in history. The large snow flake, initially absent from the logo, would drop as the first O.

February

February 6

Google celebrated the 80th birthday of François Truffaut (1932-1984), French film critic and director . The doodle represented most memorable scenes from three of his best-known pictures: The 400 Blows, Jules and Jim and The Last Metro.

February 7

Google celebrated the 200th birthday of English author Charles Dickens. The doodle featured characters from some of Dickens works: Ebenezer Scrooge from The Christmas Carol and Pip from Great Expectations. The doodle, unlike other doodles, lead users to Google Books search results page listing his popular novels.

February 14

Google celebrated Valentine's Day with a video doodle featuring Tony Bennett's version of Cold, Cold Heart and an animated love story of a boy trying to woo a girl, getting rid of the Catull font for a day, but the logo's trademark colors were put all over the animated video. The ending features a collage of six couples: a man and an alien couple, a girl and a frog couple, a cat and a dog couple, an interracial couple, a gay male couple, and a chocolate chip cookie and milk couple.

February 22

Google celebrated Heinrich Hertz's 155th birthday by replacing the logo with the form of electromagnetic waves bearing the Google colors. Although there are no letters, the form of the name could be discerned from the shapes of the crests and troughs of the waves. The doodle was also a relatively simpler animated GIF image, unlike many others that used complex JavaScript for animated doodles. It is also to note that a controversy has erupted concerning the wave being made with half-ellipses when sinusoids would have been expected.

February 29

Google celebrated the 220th birthday of Italian composer Gioachino Rossini by showing four frogs performing The Barber of Seville with one playing the piano and the other three dressed as characters from the said opera. The frogs themselves also bring home the fact that February 29 is a leap day. Google had previously used simple leap day frog logos (with no connection to any other event or celebration) in 2004 and 2008.

March

March 8

Google celebrated the International Women's Day with a bright, semi-diaphanous doodle. The doodle featured the universal female symbol stand in for the "G". The red dots in place of the first 'O' and the 'E' seemed to represent the bindi, a symbol identified with Indian women.

March 14

Google celebrated the 101st birthday of Akira Yoshizawa, considered to be the grandmaster of origami. The doodle featured the letters of the logo as origami, created by Robert Lang. There were several butterflies of different colours on some of the letters.

March 16

Google Peru celebrated the 120th birthday of César Vallejo, one of the greatest innovators of twentieth-century poetry.

March 17

Google celebrated Saint Patrick's Day with a doodle featuring art inspired by the Celtic manuscript the Book of Kells, a New Testament Gospel book revered as a national treasure in Ireland. The art was formed to depict the letters of the word 'Google'.

March 19

Google celebrated the 80th birthday of the Sydney Harbour Bridge with a doodle featuring the Sydney Harbour Bridge with the company name emblazoned on it.

March 20

Google celebrated the first day of spring. The artwork was done by Marimekko and consisted of flowers, a truck, butterflies,a crane, and a zebra. Together these various components spelt out "google".

March 23

Google celebrated the 125th birthday of the Spanish painter, Juan Gris's, with a doodle featuring a cubist imagery he helped pioneer. It also features stylised representations of musical instruments, important elements of his works.

March 27

Google celebrated the 126th birthday of German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, with a doodle featuring his iconic, single block building architecture, getting rid of the Catull font for a day. The building in the doodle is the Crown Hall at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.

April

April 1

April Fools' Day

April 9

Google celebrated the 182nd birthday of Eadweard Muybridge, an English photographer of Dutch ancestry. The doodle featured an image, composed by 21 squares having images of racehorses at various stages of a gallop, eleven of which represented the word "Google" as composed by big pixels. When clicked on the play button, the doodle animates the horse's gallop, paying homage to Muybridge's Sallie Gardner at a Gallop, an early photographic experiment to capture the movement of a horse.

April 14

Google celebrated the 100th birthday of Robert Doisneau, a French photographer specialized in street photography. The doodle featured a collection of four of his most famous photographs; "the boy on a bike" the letter G of Google, the two o's with the female sculpture photo, the lower part of the second G was printed in the toy dog photo and the remaining part of the second G with the letter L and letter E were placed inside the “Kiss by the Hotel de Ville″. The Google search engine results page however shows only a smaller version of the photo "Kiss by the Hotel de Ville".

April 22

Google celebrated Earth Day. The doodle featured a time-lapse animation of blooming flowers in purple, red and yellow flowers sprout out from a series of shrubs laid out to spell the word Google.

April 23

Google UK celebrated the 30th anniversary of Sinclair ZX Spectrum and St George's Day. The Doodle showed the pixilated hallmark Spectrum experience and because the ZX Spectrum shares its birthday with St George's Day, inset is a knight on horseback fighting a dragon. The doodles team made sure the 256×192-pixel doodle adhered to Spectrum's constrains, i.e. used only a 15-color palette, with no more than two colors (or any light/dark hue pairs) in any 8-pixel square.

April 24

Google celebrated the 132nd birthday of Gideon Sundback, inventor of the practical version of the zipper, by putting an interactive zipper in the front page. Pulling down on the "zipper" would reveal search results for Sundback's name.

However, the zipper failed to work in Internet Explorer and some old versions of Firefox browsers, as unzipping the doodle turned the page blank and no search results appeared, due to the Doodle utilizing HTML5 and the Canvas features that may not be present in certain browsers or older versions. The issue was also reported in Google's own browser; Google Chrome.

April 26

Google celebrated Israel's 64th Independence Day. In the picture, four cartoon children are hanging Israeli flags on the logo.

May

May 4

Google honored 54th birth anniversary of Keith Haring, an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s. The doodle featured a group of bold, colorful figures dancing and celebrating, enlightening the feel of street dancing, as tribute to his iconic style of pop art.

May 8

Google honored birth anniversary of Abhidas Keloth an student and social activist

May 9

Google celebrated 138th birthday of Howard Carter, an English archaeologist and Egyptologist known for having a primary role in the discovery of the tomb of 14th-century BC pharaoh Tutankhamun. The doodle featured a wide array of Egyptian treasures that cover the "Google" logo, making it barely visible.

May 13

Google honored mothers globally on the occasion of Mother's Day. The doodle featured was an animated one, where the visitors are greeted with the second "g" of the term Google, with the two small case "o’s" her children. The two "o's" pop out from an open door and the proceed to give their mother a hug and a purple flower (reminiscent of the Mother's Day doodle in 2011).

May 23

Google celebrated Robert Moog's 78th birthday, an American pioneer of electronic music, known for his invention of the Moog synthesizer. The doodle featured a virtual synthesizer, with mini-synthesizer keys that when clicked on, produced sweet electronic tones, along with oscillators, mixer and filter with the letters 'GOOG' formed of the buttons, that could be adjusted part from modulation switch and wheel. The rest letters were as wires, which connected the synthesizer to a sound box, with options to record, playback and share on Google+. It could also be played with a keyboard. Ryan Germick, Google’s chief doodler, remarked that it was the most technically ambitious Doodle yet.

May 28

Google Australia celebrated the 100th birthday of Australian astronomer Ruby Payne-Scott, the first female radio astronomer.

May 30

Google honored Peter Carl Fabergé, a Russian jeweller, best known for the famous Fabergé eggs, on his 166th birth anniversary. The doodle featured a set of six exquisite jewelled eggs, decorated in diamonds, precious metals and gemstones.

June

June 2

Google UK celebrated the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II, the queen (head of state) of sixteen nations, with a doodle. The doodle featured two diamonds in place of the 'O's, her two beloved corgies, and her silhouette, adorned by a gold-bordered blue robe and crown, on which the 'E' sits upon.

June 6

Google featured a video doodle for the anniversary of the opening of the first drive-in theater on June 6, 1933 in New Jersey by Richard Hollingshead. The Wilhelm scream can be heard in the short film, and some of the things in the doodle (car license plate, movie ticket, etc.) have the word "Google" on them. The Android robot also makes an appearance as a miniature statue or bobblehead.

June 23

Google featured a Turing machine doodle for Alan Turing's 100th birthday. The doodle features an interactive Turing machine, wherein users are required to modify six programs so that they work correctly. The doodle has two stages, after finishing the first set of levels, reloading the doodle will reveal a new set of programs. Each successful modification adds the color to a letter of the word "Google".

July

July 1

Google Canada celebrated Canada Day, with a doodle. The doodle featured a beaver sitting on a beaver dam in place of the 'O's and 'G', a tree bitten at the bottom by a beaver for the 'L' and the Canadian flag, mountains and the branches of a tree for the 'E'.

July 4

Google celebrated the independence day of the United States (referred to as "4th of July") with a doodle featuring the words "this land was made for you and me", from the Woody Guthrie folk song, "This Land Is My Land".

Google Canada celebrated the 111th anniversary of the Hartland Covered Bridge, with a doodle. The doodle featured the covered bridge in place of the 'O's and 'G', and the letters 'L' and 'E' coming out of the bridge.

July 14

Google honored 150th birthday anniversary of Gustav Klimt, an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. The doodle shows his 1907 painting, The Kiss, perhaps Klmit's most famous piece of art, depicting a couple embracing their bodies entwined in elaborately decorated robes.

July 24

Google honored 115th birth anniversary of Amelia Earhart, a noted American aviation pioneer and author. The doodle featured Earhart, the first great female aviator, climbing into her Lockheed Vega monoplane, which is now kept at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

Olympics

See also: 2012 London Olympics

July 27

Google celebrated the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games, which is scheduled to take place in London, United Kingdom, from July 27 until August 12, 2012, with a doodle showing five athletes playing different Olympic sports, including football, swimming/diving, running/jumping, javelin throw, fencing and basketball.

July 28

Following Google's tradition of daily Olympic doodles, which began during the 2000 Sydney Olympics, an archery doodle was featured with a female archer taking aim at a bullseye, targeting the 'o' on the Google logo painted on a wall. Google posted its second archery doodle, for it posted in 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2004 Athens.

July 29

The third in the series, a diving doodle was featured with a female diver in position for the plunge on the diving board over a pool that has the Google logo painted on the bottom. It was the third diving doodle, Google had posted during 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2008 Beijing.

July 30

A fencing doodle was the fourth in the series, featuring two fencers facing off on a stage. The letter "o" in "Google" is the head for one fencer, while the "l" is the foil for the other, while the rest letters are on the boundary. It's the second fencing doodle, the earlier one was posted during 2004 Athens Olympics.

July 31

The fifth doodle in the series, Google featured a doodle depicting a male gymnast displaying his craft on rings. The two rings form the two "O"s in the word Google. This being the fourth gymnastics doodle, Google posted such doodles on all three previous occasions, though only 2000 Sydney depicted the gymnastic rings.

August 1

The sixth doodle for the games, Google featured field hockey with a female player in action, holding a hockey stick and trying to hit the ball, at a hockey ground. The "Google" letters are shown up as an advertisement at the fence, as the second "O" and "G" is hidden behind the player. This was the first ever field hockey doodle posted by Google.

August 2

Google featured a doodle on table tennis as the seventh doodle for the Olympic series. The doodle saw two table tennis players - a right handed player and a left handed player - playing with the racket, while one of them is shown as the second 'O' of the term Google. The rest of the Google letters are written on the net.

August 3

The shot put event was the theme of the eight doodle for the Olympic series, featuring a male athlete getting ready to throw a shot put. While the Google's logo appeared in the horizon, two officials were seen standing near the alphabet "L" of the word Google.

August 4

The pole vault event appeared in the ninth Olympic doodle featuring a female pole vaulter in action trying to take a leap using a long and flexible pole. The Google logo is seen partially behind a packed stadium of which the ceiling is painted in Google colours.

August 5

The tenth doodle in the series, this doodle featured synchronized swimming with a team of eight women forming a circular formation of letter "O", while the letters of "Google" is seen floating in a swimming pool with shadows at the bottom.

August 6

The eleventh doodle in the series featured the javelin throw where a male javelin thrower takes his position in front of a packed stadium. At the background, the term "Google" was written in a slapdash manner, with the second "O" hidden behind the thrower. This was the first javelin doodle. The doodle was later updated with also featuring Curiosity Rover, one of NASA's Mars rovers, to mark the day the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars, roving above the audience.

August 7

Based on hurdling, the twelfth doodle of the Olympic series was an interactive one (the first for an Olympic doodle), which allowed the user to participate in a single-player hurdles race, with an 'O' converted into the start button. Left-right arrow keys were used to run, while space bar was used to jump over the 10 hurdles in the race. Upon the completion, a score (in seconds) and star rating is displayed on the screen, and the user can share the result on Google+. However, this doodle could only be played on computer with keyboards; in mobile browsers, the screen renders a static image.

August 8

The thirteenth doodle and the second interactive doodle was based on basketball for the Olympic series. The doodle, featuring a basketball player, allows the player to shoot as many basketballs into the hoop as possible with a time limit of 24 seconds. The space bar sets the shot and tapping it once more shoots the ball toward the basket.

August 9

The fourteenth doodle and the third interactive doodle was based on canoeing. The doodle, featuring a canoe player, lets the player slalom through poles and avoid obstacle through the river coarse as fast as possible. Upon the completion, a score (in seconds) and star rating is displayed on the screen.

August 10

Soccer was the theme for the fifteenth doodle and the fourth interactive doodle of the Olympic series. The doodle, features a soccer player and a goalkeeper. The objective of this game as a goalkeeper is to prevent the soccer ball from passing through the goal and to avoid letting in 3 goals.

August 11

Rhythmic gymnastics was the theme for sixteenth doodle for the Olympics series. This doodle being non-interactive compared to couple of previous doodles, it featured a female gymnast with an apparatus as a ribbon.

August 12

"Cheerful" was the theme for the last Google Doodle for the London Olympic series, to mark the celebration of the closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. The doodle featured a number of athletes from different Olympic sports celebrating the last day of Olympics with the athletes holding up the letters of "Google".

August

August 14

The doodle celebrated the Independence Day of Pakistan, representing the various aspects of the country's culture and heritage. The doodle shows a truck art, with different floral designs, adorned by purple baubles hanging at the bottom.

August 15

• Google honored Julia Child on her 100th birthday, an American chef, author, and television personality. The doodle featured Julia along with a table full of food items like cake, fish and turkey, arranged in a way to form the letters of the Google logo.
• On the same day, Google also celebrated India's 65th Independence Day. The doodle featured a male peacock; the national bird of India, as the bird curves its neck backwards to form the "G", while other letters are seen designed colored in yellow ochre and blue.

August 31

Google honored Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator best known for the philosophy of education that bears her name, on her 142nd birthday. The doodle featured various tools that form an integral part of Montessori's education methods. Both of the company's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, went to Montessori schools.

September

September 8

• Google honored Star Trek: The Original Series' 46th anniversary.
• Google celebrated the Independence Day of Macedonia. The doodle showed Lake Ohrid and St. John Kaneo Church.

September 13

Google honored the 193rd birthday of Clara Schumann; a German musician and composer, well remembered as one of the most distinguished pianists of the Romantic era. The doodle featured Schumann playing piano along with her eight children forming two "o"s and the second "g" in the Google logo.

September 27

Google's celebrated its 14th birthday by featuring a chocolate cake with 14 candles on it and the Google logo engraved on the cake.

October

October 5

Irish author and journalist Brian O'Nolan, better known by his pen names Flann O'Brien and Myles na gCopaleen, was honoured on the 101st anniversary of his birth. Included in the graphic was an image of a bicycle, in reference to the role of bicycles in his novel The Third Policeman.

October 7

Google honored the 127th birthday of the famous Danish physicist, Niels Bohr. The doodle showcased his contributions to science by replacing the letter 'O' with the Bohr atomic model. The other letters were written in white on a blackboard.

October 15

Google celebrated the 107th anniversary of Winsor McCay's Little Nemo comic strip, with an interactive doodle called "Little Nemo in Google-land". Each slide featured a letter from the word "Google".

October 18

Google honored the 161st anniversary of Moby-Dick. The doodle featured an episode from the book in which Captain Ahab commandeers a boat to strike at the huge white whale.

October 29

Google honored the 70th birthday of the famous American painter Bob Ross. The doodle includes Ross, his chipmunk, and a little landscape.

October 31

Google celebrated Halloween by featuring a doodle with a haunted mansion numbered 13 with scary and bizarre creatures around it. The doodle was interactive, wherein a user can click on either various locations in the haunted mansion and see the letters of the Google logo turn into threatening beings behind every door.

November

November 8

Google celebrated the 165th birthday of Irish writer Bram Stoker, best known for writing Dracula. The doodle featured an illustration depicting scenes from Stoker's famous gothic fiction novel Dracula.

November 11

Google celebrated Veterans Day with red, white, and blue colors in the logo. The traditional "l" in Google is replaced by an American flag and a boy plays trumpet on the grassy hill below it.

November 12

Google honored Auguste Rodin on his 172nd birthday, featuring depicting one of his most famous sculptures, The Thinker; a bronze sculpture on marble pedestal.

November 13

Google honored the 31st anniversary since the first utilisation of Canadarm.

November 22

Google celebrated Thanksgiving and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York.

December

December 10

Google celebrated the 197th birthday of Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician and writer who is popularly but arguably known as the mother of computer programming. The doodle featured an illustration depicting a woman who resembles Lovelace, a mathematical formula, and images of computers, progressing from early machines to modern laptops and tablets.

December 20

Google celebrated the 200th anniversary of Grimm's Fairy Tales with an interactive doodle of Little Red Riding Hood illustrated by Matthew Cruickshank.

December 21

Google celebrated the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar reaching the date 13.0.0.0.0, which was associated with various doomsday theories.

December 22

Google honored the 125th birthday of Srinivasa Ramanujan; an Indian mathematician and autodidact. The doodle featured an Indian child etching out mathematical theorems which form the letters of the word "Google", as another 5 children watches the same. At the bottom of the doodle is the numeric value of Pi to the 21st decimal point.

December 24

On Christmas Eve, Google placed the first image in what it labelled a "holiday series", depicting living toys walking toward a series of gifts that have the word "Google" spelled out on them. When the image was clicked, the user was brought to a search results page for "Happy Holidays", "End of the year 2012", "Have a good end of the year", among similar variants.

December 25

On Christmas Day, Google placed a second and final image in this "holiday series", depicting a man in a marching suit and a small duck walking toward a set of large presents that spelled out the word "Google". When the image was clicked, the user was again brought to a search results page for "Happy Holidays" and similar variants, which led to some complaints about Google's lack of the greeting "Merry Christmas".

December 28

Google celebrated the 160th birthday of Leonardo Torres y Quevedo, the designer of the Whirlpool Aero Car.

See also

• Google logo
• List of Google Doodles (1998–2009)
• List of Google Doodles in 2010
• List of Google Doodles in 2011
• List of Google Doodles in 2013
• List of Google Doodles in 2014
• List of Google Doodles in 2015

External links

• Google Doodles Archive (with images)

References

1. REDIRECT Template:Google LLC