On the 29th February 2020, I finally get a chance to do one of my dream project— to illustrate a Google Doodle! It's a Doodle to commemorate the late N.H.Dini, a legendary Indonesian author, on her birthday (yes, such a unique birthday on leap year). The Doodle was only live on Google page within Indonesia. Kindly scroll down to learn more about the process before we ended up using this final one.
The final version of the Doodle that is live on Google page
The process of making the Doodle was around 2 months. While the back & forth feedback with the Google team in the US took the biggest portion of the time, the execution of the illustration itself took only around 1-2 days. I was so inspired by the connection between N.H.Dini and her books, the stories she wrote. I even drew my color palette based on her iconic book covers to ensure that every elements of the Doodle is intentional and gives meaning to her as a whole individual.
The covers of N.H.Dini's works where I drew my color palette from (Image courtesy from Google)
For this Doodle particularly, I tried a few sketches of her. There are some that is quite simple & straight forward, but in the end, we decided to go for one idea that I feel has more depth among all sketches. For the chosen idea, I was inspired by one of her best work, titled "Pada Sebuah Kapal" ("Aboard A Ship"). It is about a women named Sri, who lives an unhappy marriage, and falls in love with a captain of a ship. There are theories that explain that Sri is actually N.H.Dini herself, and that details of the story are so similar to her true life. In many ways, her books are more like memoirs than fiction. They are so personal it's like she is giving everybody access to look into her diaries.
1/3 - Rough sketches of N.H.Dini: The branches from her back was inspired by the elements that are used on her covers
2/3 - Rough sketches of N.H.Dini: The 'GOOGLE' word behind her was meant to be in handwritten style, portraying her pen strokes.
3/3 - Rough sketches of N.H.Dini: The chosen idea that gone through.
For the final idea, I disguise the letter 'O' as porthole, so that based on her book title, "Abroad A Ship", it is as if she was sitting on a ship writing on her memoirs. The colorful pages of papers are meant to be the many books she has written, derived from the cover of her classics. For the typography, I did try a few direction, but in the end we decided to go for the one with ship ropes, to tie back to the whole idea of her being in a ship.
A few directions of typography that I've tried before the final Doodle
After I did the final illustration, there are still a few minor changes considering the feedback we got from N.H.Dini's family. I have to changed a little on her figure, eyes & skin colors until it became the final Doodle. You can learn more about N.H.Dini and read my artist Q&A here.
