As Google’s home page celebrated the birthday of “Little House on the Prairie” author Laura Ingalls Wilder on Feb. 7, it also recognized the talents of associate professor of writing Jack Wang. He and his brother Holman created the “Google Doodle” that the website’s millions of users saw when visiting the page on that day. It will have a permanent home on the Doodles Archive site.
Twin brothers Jack and Holman are the authors and illustrators of a board book series called Cozy Classics, which abridges literary classics in 12 child-friendly words and 12 needle-felted illustrations. They offer a way for parents to introduce children to great stories and significant works of literature in an age-appropriate manner, without compromising on quality.
“We received an e-mail from Google saying they wanted to give us an assignment, but we had to agree to keep it under wraps before they would tell us what it was, so it was something of a mystery at first,” says Jack Wang. “It turns out their people had seen one of our books and wanted us to apply our illustrative technique to the author of ‘Little House on the Prairie.’ Naturally, we were both thrilled and honored by the invitation.”
The illustration Jack and Holman created features Laura and her sister Mary, both made famous by the series of books — and later the popular television series — about growing up in a pioneer family. Laura was born on Feb. 7, 1867.
“Google encouraged us to keep the logo colorful, cheerful and legible,” says Jack. “We also discussed concepts with them, and we had room to create, which was nice.”
Jack felted the bodies for both figures, detailed and dressed Mary (on the right in the doodle) and built the model cabin seen in the background. Holman detailed and dressed Laura, completed the rest of the set and took the photo of it that is used for the logo.
Google also posted a guest blog from Jack and Holman that shows and tells how they created the “Little House on the Prairie” doodle.
The first doodle to serve as a stand-in for the regular Google.com logo was created in 1998 by website founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin to let Google’s users know they were out of the office attending the Burning Man Festival. Doodles have subsequently been used to honor and recognize significant people and occasions, from the serious to the whimsical.
In addition to creating versions of such literary classics as “Pride and Prejudice, “Moby Dick” and even “War and Peace,” the brothers have branched out to adapt movies as well.
In March, Chronicle Books will publish “Star Wars Epic Yarns,” a trio of books containing classic scenes from the original film “A New Hope” and its sequels “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi,” all rendered in the felt format.
To see more of the brothers’ work, visit www.jackandholman.com or www.mycozyclassics.com.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20150206174009862