Sunday, April 4, 2010

Google's 'Flipbook' Logo Tribute to Hans Christian Andersen

Please forgive the delayed news but it's worth a post for two reasons:

1) Hans Christian Andersen's 205th birthday was on Friday and Google had a special logo up all day to celebrate it and
2) It was a brand new style - a 'flipbook' logo which, when you clicked on the image/arrow went to another image, telling you the story of Thumbelina in Google logo form (all five are shown in order in this post).
Here's an excerpt from the story in Christian Science Monitor on April 2nd:

Google has made an institution out of swapping out its company logo for a special nod to great minds of the past. Today, it celebrated the 205th birthday of Hans Christian Andersen, the Danish author of "The Little Mermaid," "The Emperor's New Clothes," and "The Ugly Duckling."

But rather than stick to a single novelty image, Google chose five.

Google's tribute to Hans Christian Andersen riffs off his story of "Thumbelina." The tale revolves around a tiny girl that was born from a flower and sleeps in a walnut cradle. But to capture the twists and turns of Thumbelina's adventure, Google created a five-part image gallery, which users can advance by clicking the on the logo. It begins with itty-bitty Thumbelina amid her family's knitting tools. Next, we see the frog and mole that each try to marry her. Once she escapes the frog that kidnapped her, she must hide from a harsh winter, depicted in the third slide. Then, after gliding on the back of a bird (image four), she finds a miniature prince (the final picture).

The pair lives happily ever after, but what is Google's next move? This flipbook style is new to Google doodles. It's a clever yet understated way of honoring a story that's more about the wild journey than any individual scene.

How cool is that? Plus, new Thumbelina illustrations, yay!
I love that fairy tales were involved in another first. Thumbelina is a great choice too, as Andersen's birthday falls on the Easter weekend this year and I think of Thumbelina as a 'Spring' fairy tale, which, apart from the religious celebrations, is what Easter (or Eostar or Oestre, a.k.a. the Spring Equinox holiday) is about.

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