Google Aliens · May 2000 · Sequential Illustration
Google’s First Multi-Day Doodle Series — Google Aliens, 2000
In May 2000, I illustrated a five-part sequence for Google in which an alien craft gradually interfered with the Google logo over several days.
Eighteen years later, Google included the project in its retrospective on notable Doodles and identified the sequence as its first Doodle series, crediting me by name as the illustrator.
Google Retrospective · 2018
A later look back at the early Doodles
When Google marked twenty years of Doodles, it published a retrospective covering some of the milestones in the format’s development. The article included the Google Aliens sequence from May 2000 and credited the five illustrations to me.
“In May 2000, five Doodles by illustrator Ian David Marsden…”
For me, the interesting part is not simply that the work was remembered. The sequence is a useful example of how quickly the Doodle format moved from a single image into something closer to a tiny comic strip distributed across several days.
Google Aliens
Five days, one small story
The Google logo became the setting. An alien craft approached, made contact, interfered with the letters and eventually departed. Each image had to work on its own while also moving the sequence forward.
Official archive links
More than a logo variation
The sequence depended on continuity, staging and timing. The letters remained recognisably Google, but they also functioned as props inside a miniature narrative. That balance between identity and story is what made the project interesting to draw.
Part of a much larger year
Google Aliens was one of several projects I created while working as Google’s freelance Doodle artist. Others included MentalPlex, the Founding Fathers July 4 sequence, the Sydney Olympics Kangaroodle series and seasonal Doodles.
The full Google Doodle story
This article is specifically about the Google Aliens series. For the broader story — beginning with Susan Wojcicki contacting me for MentalPlex, followed by my period as Google’s freelance Doodle artist — see the main Google Doodle page.
