Google’s homepage for today is definitely a treat, regardless if you’re a fan of Halloween or not. The October 31st Doodle shows six humongous carved pumpkins spelling out “Google”. It plays a time lapse of the Doodle staff carving each pumpkin, while other Googlers, several of them in costume, show up every now and then to do their thing (see if you can spot the Peg Man from Google Maps ). Now, Google’s time lapse does a really good job of making the whole pumpkin-carving process look fun, simple, and easy. But don’t be fooled. Carving those huge pumpkins may have been fun, but it sure wasn’t simple and easy.
Obviously, we have the size factor. The pumpkins that we normally display outside our homes during Halloween are usually the size of an average human head and don’t weigh above fifty pounds. However, the pumpkins that were used in today’s Google Doodle were larger than life, and needed to be transported using trucks and other huge equipment. They had to be very careful, too. According to Sophia Foster-Dimino, the Doodler Project Co-Lead, the pumpkins weren’t just gigantic, they were fragile, as well. The staff also had to think hard on how they were going to carve the pumpkins. After all, cutting a wrong piece of a pumpkin could cause it to collapse, so the team had to find the right balance between being artistic and structurally sound. Oh, and if you’re wondering how much the pumpkins weigh, most of them are over a thousand pounds, with the heaviest one being about 1298 pounds. Whew!
Six Doodlers worked on the actual pumpkin carving process, with each individual assigned to one letter in the brand’s name. Each staff member thought of how they were going to incorporate their assigned letter to their own pumpkin and designed away. They started by drawing the artistic pattern on the pumpkin before cutting in to it with a knife. Again, these pumpkins are so huge that sculpting them was a difficult task. Jennifer Hom, who was in charge of the letter L even carved hers, using a huge saw. The Doodlers didn’t use real candles to light the pumpkins. Instead they used a bunch of light bulbs attached to flicker boxes that would enable the lights to dim and up and down and simulate candle light.
Prior to getting into carving the giant pumpkins, the Doodle staff also did a test-run time lapse using regular-sized pumpkins. Check out googledoodle’s YouTube channel to see all the behind the scenes action for this year’s Halloween Doodle.
Talk about thorough. Yup, when it comes to thinking big, you gotta hand it to Google. Happy Halloween, everybody!
