International Womens Day 2013 Google Doodle

How do you create a doodle which is fun but also fairly represents women of all shapes and size for the International Womens Day 2013 Google Doodle? This is the problem which faced one of the doodlers, Betsy Bauer. Betsy managed to overcome the initial problem and produce a truly stunning doodle for the occasion. On March 8^th 2013, the Google search engine launched a doodle celebrating International Women’s day 2013.

The doodle managed to squeeze in as many different female faces as was physically possible.

A total of 27 individual female faces were depicted.

What was perhaps the most impressive element of the doodle was that Bauer managed to sculpt the white space around the faces into the shape of the Google logo.

In order to arrive at the final design, it took Bauer several attempts. In a blog launched to accompany the International Womens Day 2013 Google Doodle she explained some of the earlier concepts. “I initially thought it might be fun to simply depict some ladies having fun outside. I then tried to anthropomorphize the Google letters into women from different backgrounds and lifestyle choices. Ultimately, I didn’t feel that any of these fairly represented women as a whole.”

Despite spending time struggling over various concepts, Bauer went on to elaborate how the concept was born. “The idea for the final illustration came to me while I was doing one of my favourite things – sketching in a coffee shop. When drawing from life, you really observe how each human face is unique. People come in all shapes and sizes! I realized that I could use a similar concept with the Women’s Day Doodle. Using simple shapes to write “Google” with negative space seemed to be the best way to approach this assignment; I now had far more to work with than simply replacing the 6 letters in “Google”.”

The International Womens Day 2013 Google Doodle is remarkable, also, for the wide levels of international exposure it received. In a total of 86 countries worldwide, the Google homepage was transformed for the day into the doodle. International Women’s Day was initially known as International Women’s Working Day. It is held annually on the 8^th of March. The focus of the celebration varies widely from country to country. The celebration was initially started as a socialist political event. In some countries, the day has lost its political undertones and is a day when men celebrate their love for women, similar to Father’s and Mother’s day. However, in other countries, the political and human rights theme of the day maintains strong. The day was first celebrated in America in 1909.

Each year women’s day has a specific theme. This year the theme was: “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.” More information is available on the Official International Women’s Day website.