Pixelism

CNN.com has a nice article about Dennis Hwang, headlined Google's unknown artist has huge following.

Yup, Hwang's the guy who creates all those variations of the Google logo that celebrate holidays or commemorates events and people. They really stand out, considering how spartan Google.com usually is.

Hwang apparently started out as intern at Google, but since Google's success owes as much to its great people as anything else, the founders quickly noticed his artistic abilities and wound up asking him to apply it to what may be the most valuable virtual real estate in the world.

How does he decide when the logo mutates?

Hwang said users e-mail from all over the world to praise the designs or petition for new ones.

Hwang said they did a logo for the Persian New Year after a huge online campaign and that the National Library Day design was very popular.

"That one was a huge hit among librarians across the whole country," he said. They even sent me library-related cool toys and hats things like that. One was even a librarian action figure with 'shushing action' so that was really funny."

He said he meets a few times a year with a small group of Google staffers to decide which events to cover.

"We talk about interesting holidays that are coming up, or various international holidays or any current events or news events that we think are cool and geeky or 'Google-y' in some sense and then we just sort of give it a go," he said.

Hwang said his favorite was the birthday series honoring Michelangelo, Picasso, Van Gogh and other famous artists.

"Having been a student of art history for a long time those are a little bit more personal," Hwang said. "Of course, trying to mimic the style of a master is always difficult and humbling, so it does take a lot more time to do those, but it's also a lot more fun."

CNN has a little photo gallery of some of his logos, but of course if you really want the goods, go to Google.

Hwang's Google logos via Google.