Google on That: When Words and Images Come Together

I am looked at by countless internet users every single day. People use me on a daily basis to find the things they are searching for from all corners of the web. I’ve not only become a household name, but also a prominent engine, advertising company, and browser.  Heck, I’ve even become a verb in the English language. As I continue to bring millions of internet users together with my red, green, blue and yellow letters, I continue to innovate the ways by which we surf the internet.

What am I?

Google has been around for as long as I can remember. But even with so many gold stars under its belt, the only thing that comes to mind when I think of Google is the typeface that adorns its famous home page (shown above). Despite only being a simple string of letters, this logo has not only come to be iconic in today’s society, but also a favorite target of design and reinvention.

This is shown through the specialty Google logos that commemorate special occasions and holidays throughout the year. Some of these have been eye-catching, others have been subtler, and a few have even allowed interaction between themselves and millions of Google users. The fact that so much design can be incorporated into a word of only six letters shows that there is a significant relationship between words and images. But what exactly is that relationship?

Dennis Hwang, who has been designing a majority of these specialty logos for years, answers this question through his work. More commonly known as “Google Doodles,” these logos often shape an image to resemble the familiar g's, o's, l and e. Not only have his Google Doodles become famous in the search engine world, they have also caused Hwang to become one of the most famous “unknown” artists in the world. Although his work is not on display in places of high culture, it is ultimately recognized by millions of individuals throughout the year.

The fact that so many people are fascinated by Hwang’s Google Doodles shows that words and images do not necessarily have to interact with each other to have an impact on viewers. Instead, words and images can be the same and still have a similar effect. As seen in Hwang's designs, words and images merging together only make the logo more engaging for those who stumble upon it. And as time goes on, we constantly run into this word and image relationship as Google continues to be the face of new design.

Google on that.