The results are adorable, insightful, and they provide a glimpse into what we subject our kids to on a daily basis. The video also provides a good reminder that your logos should be simple and impactful; lest you become like the Olympics, and your logo comes out looking baby toys. Hey, they do look like baby toys…

As indicated, the latest doodle is indeed interactive, done with the mouse inputs. Google visitors can select which Muppet they wish to manipulate by clicking the hand signal underneath the characters. Once selected, the selected Muppet follows the movement of the mouse and when a button is pressed, the selected Muppet opens its mouth, allowing the user to take add a voice to the animated character. The Henson Doodle represents another successful interactive Google Doodle, a string that has seen the awesome Les Paul logo, as well as Freddie Mercury and Alexander Calder, to name a few.

Like other doodles, when clicked, the user is taken to a “Jim Henson” search results page, and it’s a fantastic way to remind people just how awesome Henson’s creative talent was, and it should also go a long way in explaining why his talent is still missed.

According to the Google blog, the logo will be visible for 36 hours. The logo was also created with cooperation from The Jim Henson Company. The Google blog includes a guest post from Brian Henson, the son of the late Jim Henson, and it closes by adding some insight into the man responsible for Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy:

Jim was clearly a great visionary. But he also wanted everyone around him fully committed creatively. If you asked him how a movie would turn out, he’d say, “It’ll be what this group can make, and if you changed any one of them, it would be a different movie.” Every day for him was joyously filled with the surprises of other people’s ideas. I often think that if we all lived like that, not only would life be more interesting, we’d all be a lot happier.

There’s also a video celebrating the doodle, again, courtesy of Henson’s company:

"Our new identity is uniquely dynamic. Our business is focused on creating world-class experiences for consumers and AOL is centered on creative and talented people – employees, partners, and advertisers. We have a clear strategy that we are passionate about and we plan on standing behind the AOL brand as we take the company into the next decade," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and CEO of AOL.

Curiously, in the press release, AOL still uses the all caps method of spelling its name. That doesn’t seem like the best way to kick off this new brand identity. To be fair, the company says that identity will be fully unveiled on December 10th, so I guess such trivialities will have to wait until then. That’s when AOL’s common stock begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

Here are a few instances of the new logo, placed on various images:

"Historically brand identity has been monolithic and CONTROLLING, little more than stamping a company name on a product.  AOL is a 21st century media company, with an ambitious vision for the future and new focus on creativity and expression, this required the new brand identity to be open and generous, to invite conversation and collaboration, and to feel credible, but also aspirational. We’re delighted to have worked so closely with the AOL leadership team to create something bold and exciting that sets AOL apart," said Karl Heiselman, CEO of Wolff Olins.

Wolff Olins is the consultancy firm that AOL partnered with to develop the new brand identity. According to AOL, some of the "world’s best creative artists" created the art and animations for the new brand look.

What do you think of the new AOL logo? Share your thoughts here.

Related Articles:

> AOL and Time Warner Officially Splitting Up

> AOL Names Post-Time Warner Board of Directors

> AOL Taps Arthur Minson As CFO

According to Loren Baker at Search Engine Journal, the code Google is using for the doodle actually would read "Google" if scanned.

Google is really cranking out the doodles these days. Is it just me or do they appear much more frequently than they used to?

Recently, a way to make your favorite doodle stick was discovered. It is a Greasemonkey script, and if I recall correctly, Matt Cutts even tweeted about, seemingly giving it Google’s seal of approval.

What is your favorite Google doodle? Tell us in the comments.

Google especially (in part because nobody pays attention to Yahoo unless Microsoft tries to buy them) is known for spicing up its logo on special days, to commemorate artists, historic accomplishments, and often, national holidays.

Memorial Day hasn’t been part of that tradition either, to many’s dismay. (I stopped bugging them about more trivial things, but a couple of years ago a Google PR rep told me they didn’t want to take a chance on offending anyone by appearing to make light of such a solemn and reverent occasion like Memorial Day.)

If you believe that…you might also believe that perhaps they didn’t feel anybody cared about President’s Day except furniture stores. (That’s complete conjecture because, like I said, I stopped bugging them about stuff like this in general.) Heck, we don’t even get out of school for it.

That doesn’t keep the mail running, though, does it?

Anyway, while Google and Yahoo are ignoring the honoring of America’s great Presidents (notice I said great ones, not average or poor ones), Ask.com and Dogpile.com are eager to please. Ask sported a shot of Mount Rushmore, which depicts four great Presidents (even if Teddy insisted upon himself a bit—what do you expect of a rough-rider, anyway?).

Dogpile dogified Teddy, George, and Abe in solid cartoon perpetuity. (Scratching behind Dogpile’s ear and using my doggie voice: "That’s a good a citizen. Who’s a good citizen? You are! Oh, yes, you are!"
 

I was teaching design at Stanford University in 1999 when I was introduced to Larry Page and Sergei Brin by a mutual friend at Stanford. They were looking at designers to design their logo and website and I was asked to present them with some preliminary design ideas. They liked my approach and design style and I was hired to design both.

Google wanted to create a unique logo that would clearly differentiate them from the other search players at the time (Yahoo, Excite, HotBot, LookSmart and Lycos), as well as embody their unique vision.
These other players were commercial portals first, and search engines second. Google wanted to convey that it was as a search provider first and foremost. It offered fast, comprehensive, and above all trustworthy search results. It was innovative, algorithmically complex yet incredibly simple to use. Furthermore, Google as a brand should repudiate all things corporate, conventional or complacent.

Based on these guidelines there were many design iterations, and many directions were explored. At every meeting we managed to better reconcile the vision and its visual expression leading to the final design.

In the end this particular logo was selected because it reached its goal in many levels:

• It was playful and deceptively simple. The design subtle as to look almost non-designed, the reading effortless. The colors evoke memories of child play, but deftly stray from the color wheel strictures so as to hint to the inherent element of serendipity creeping into any search results page and the irreverance and boldness of the “I am feeling lucky” link. The texture and shading of each letter is done in an unobtrusive way resulting in lifting it from the page while giving it both weight and lightness. It is solid but there is also an ethereal quality to it.
• Times-Roman was the font of choice for the web at that time, while sans-serif fonts were the darling of the printed world. I wanted the readability of a serifed font, but looked for a typeface that had the same qualities we were looking for – subtly sophisticated, but with some humor and irreverence . The chosen typeface is a based on Catull, an old style serif typeface. Catull borrows elements from traditional writing instruments such as the quill and the chisel with a modern twist. Search, by nature, is an activity that requires we look into the past. Therefore Catull’s historical ties seemed appropriate, as did the bridging between the old analog world and the new emerging digital era.
• Visually, there were two main schools of thought at the time: those wanting to emulate the conventional non-web giants such as Sun and SGI (bold all-caps sans-serifed fonts), and those who viewed the irreverence of Yahoo’s non-designed approach as “the look" for the new medium. This design managed to break with the existing conventions landing Google with the unique visual expression it was looking for.

Google today is a much more complex entity – it has evolved and grown beyond our wildest imagination – who knew that it would become one of the most ubiquitous and recognized brands worldwide and that google would be a noun and a verb?

It gives me great pleasure that the design has transcended both its time and original needs, being as relevant today as it was then. Furthermore, it has become the canvas upon which Dennis Hwang’s Google Doodles can flourish.

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