The First Google Doodle in 1998 Was a 'Bit of a Joke.' Here's the Story Behind the Design That Started it All

When Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin were headed to Nevada's Burning Man festival in August of 1998, they wanted users and employees to know they wouldn't be at the search engine's helm for a while. The Ph.D. students at Stanford University decided to replace the second'O' in Google's homepage logo with a stick figure resembling the festival's logo. "It was a little bit of a joke," Jessica Yu, the Google Doodle team lead, tells TIME. "It has definitely evolved a lot since then." What began as a joke became Google Doodles that celebrate and honor holidays, people and issues worldwide, now an important venture for the tech giant.