[ Google Doodle ] Google Doodler Katy Wu tells us a little bit about the creative process behind making the Nelson Mandela doodle

Nelson Mandela's 96th Birthday

Google Doodler Katy Wu tells us a little bit about the creative process behind making the Nelson Mandela doodle.

Getting to celebrate someone as monumental and influential as Nelson Mandela must have been exciting, but also kind of intimidating. Can you tell me a little about your experience working on this project?

A few months ago I was looking to work on a bigger project and the time was right, so I got assigned to work on the Mandela doodle. At first I thought I would have to make a very serious, somber sort of doodle and I wasn’t sure what to do.

 

But after learning more about Mandela as a person I started to understand that he was a man with a lot of character, and not always just a serious figure. That started to give me more ideas about how to approach this doodle.

Right. I remember you telling the doodle team in earlier pitch sessions about some of his dance moves. What other kind of research did you do?

I read about Nelson Mandela online and in books to get a better idea of who he was as a person.  I also received a lot of help from our local doodle manager in South Africa when it came to fact checking smaller lesser known details about South African culture, history, and people.