As a new artist here at Google I was given the exciting
opportunity to design the Doodle for Volta as just my second doodle.
This was particularly thrilling given he was the 18th century Italian
physicist, chemist and electrical pioneer who invented the first
electrical battery.
To my surprise this discovery almost came by accident while Volta and
his friend Galvani, an anatomy professor, were dissecting a frog. When
the animal’s legs unexpectedly twitched from an electrical discharge,
Galvani went on to hypothesize that animals generated their own
electricity, a theory that would eventually go on to inspire Mary
Shelly’s novel, ‘Frankenstein’. But Volta had his own theory: that the
electrical discharge had been caused by two different metals touching
the frog’s body.
Experimenting with different metals and solutions, Volta ended up
creating the first electric battery: the Voltaic Pile, a stack of
alternating metal discs separated by cardboard and cloth soaked with
seawater. But what made this battery so remarkable was that it was easy
to construct out of common materials and enabled experimenters for the
first time to produce steady, predictable flows of electricity. Within
just weeks it inspired a wave of discoveries and inventions and ushered
in a new age of electrical science.
Having done my initial research I didn’t want to just settle on using
Volta’s portrait for the Doodle, especially since most of the world
wouldn’t recognize him. I wanted instead to represent his
accomplishment.
Digging into visual research I looked first for images of his
inventions, then wider to other scientific equipment of the time. WIth
an interest in graphic design I also looked to designs of the period and
was especially inspired by the intricate and ornate details of some
early Victorian posters for their dimensionality and dynamic layout.
With this inspiration I quickly thumbnailed out some sloppy sketches
experimenting with different concepts and compositions. Some of these I
turned around into quick value compositions in Illustrator to share with
my fellow Doodlers. My original thinking was to show different devices
being powered by the battery, but the concepts felt too busy and
distracted from the battery itself.
So I settled on a simpler layout featuring the battery dead center
where it would simply light up the letters in Google. One key idea I
wanted to communicate was how the voltage of the battery increased as
the stack grew. I added electrical gauges, or voltmeters, which would
animate with the stack. In keeping with the spirit of my reference, I
added Volta’s name and the year he invented the battery as typographic
elements.
Having a basic design, I now needed to add more antiquated texture and detail to make it feel as though it could have been
the first advertisement for the world’s first electrical battery. Switching
to Photoshop, I layered in old paper textures, re-tuned the values and
contrast, found a cool engraving filter and dialed in my fonts. I then
sent it out for another round of feedback and learned a couple more
things: namely voltmeters hadn’t been invented yet and the only kind of
electric light that would have existed around the time were early arc
lights.
For the sake of authenticity, I swapped out the gauges for the
ornamental symbols of Copper and Zinc, swapped out his name for the base
elements of the battery, but kept the illuminated letters for artistic
license. With one final suggestion to translate the text to Italian the
design was done.
I tinkered with different animation timing, finally settling on the
letters coming on one at a time to show the increased voltage now that
the voltmeters were gone, and saved out different formats for different
platforms.
So that’s the story of my second Doodle. I hope it brings a little light
to the Doodle process and to this very interesting person. And just for
fun, I made a portrait version...
Posted by Mark Holmes, Doodler
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