Google celebrates Mandela Day with artful Doodle

Today is Mandela Day and all over South Africa and the world, people are taking 67 minutes of their day to help their community and those less unfortunate than themselves in honour of the late global icon.

To celebrate what would been the stateman’s birthday, Google has created a Doodle slideshow that takes users through Nelson Mandela’s pivotal moments accompanied by insightful quotes from the great man.

The doodle is a fun artful illustration that captures the life of South Africa’s most important figure. Doodle creator Katy Wu said that at first she was very intimidated to create a doodle about such a great figure and was going to go for a very serious and sombre approach, but after learning about Mandela, all that changed.

“Something that stood out to me about Nelson Mandela was his eloquent way with words. I thought his words gave a great insight into the kind of man he was, so I wanted to focus the creative direction of the doodle on his quotes against a backdrop of the history of South Africa,” she says.

Wu’s approach to the doodle was to tap into some of the inspirational words that Mandela had dispensed over the years and hopes that users will be inspired by them to learn more about him and his long walk to freedom.

“I hope it inspires people to learn from Nelson Mandela and his way of life, to be kind, to understand, and to respect other people and our differences,” she adds.