The artist behind search engine’s logos

Besides being known as one of the largest Internet search engine sites in the world, Google exhibits a quirky spirit through its logo. For instance, to mark Leonardo da Vinci’s birthday on April 15, the logo was adorned with sketches of the painter’s famous works, such as the Mona Lisa. The designer behind these drawings is Hwang Jeong-mok, a 27-year-old Korean-American who is known as Dennis at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California. He has been creating Google’s logos since 2000. He celebrated his roots by drawing the Korean flag and national flower into Google’s logo on August 15, 2001, Korea’s Independence Day. “Although I was born in the United States, I love Korea and the memory of the few years I lived in Korea have a large influence on my logo designs. I feel good when people say my style has an Asian look,” Mr. Hwang said in an interview. Mr. Hwang studied art and computers at Stanford and entered Google as an intern, making his way up to his current position as international Webmaster. He said that logo designing is not his main task, but more like a side job. “Google workers are allowed to spend 20 percent of their work time in other things they want to do. I take that time to draw,” he said. “Sometimes I receive thousands of e-mails from people who comment on the logo design.” by Park Soo-ryun, Wohn Dong-hee