Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Who chooses Google logo birthdays?

Yesterday it was Beatrix Potter, a couple of months ago it was Walter Grupius, the founder of the Bauhaus architectural movement. Now, I've personally never read any of Potter's stories as a child, but I'm sure they're very good. I'm however pretty familiar with the Bauhaus movement, as there are plenty of these ugly, perfectly square or rectangular buildings here in Seattle and elsewhere around the States and Europe when "modern art" became the fashion. Only the drab communist-style buildings dotting (thankfully many have been torn down) the landscape of the old Soviet Union and its satellites are uglier.

My point is this: who chooses to commemorate a certain person and not another? The logos themselves are pretty, but I question the choices. For example, Simon Bolivar, the liberator of a few South American countries, was born on July 24th, yet he was not featured. Perhaps only artists are featured. Then why not celebrate Hemingway's birthday on July 21st or George Bernard Shaw's on July 26th?

I think Google should stick to compiling and sorting information. It seems like there is too much editorial power for someone to pick a particular person that millions of people see (even the Google news section is automatically generated), cute as the logos may be.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennis_Hwang!