To mark the 180th birthday of philosopher John Venn, known in today's modern world for creating the Venn diagram, Google has created an illustration to honor the English logician.
The Doodle allows users to interact with the logo and create their own Venn diagrams if they desire. Google has often honored scientists and philosophers with their own Doodle, which recreates the Google logo as a tribute.
The current doodle gives users the ability to choose from a number of subjects -- including, but not limited to mammals or sea life -- as well as five different descriptors, which will then create the corresponding doodle you wanted.
A Venn diagram traditionally has been used with two or three circles that represent a set or grouping of things or ideas into logical sections, but the circles overlap to show the similarities between all three -- or more -- groupings of things and ideas.
Even a cartoon of the philosopher has been incorporated into the doodle.
"With a concept this simple, you would think it was all fun and games to design an interactive doodle for John Venn's 180th birthday. And you would be right, but there was also a lot more to it!" wrote Google in a blog post discussing the concept.
The creators of the doodle say that the design is simple because most people today will remember Venn diagrams from early in school, so they wanted to create something that would be easily interactive for all age groups.
"Many of us first learned about Venn diagrams in our early school years, so that was a factor. While it was important to make something all users could enjoy, Corrie and I wanted to make something kids would find especially fun and educational," said project lead and designer of the Venn doodle, Mike Dutton.
It also follows a number of efforts by Google to push out a number of ideas, and the doodle's have been great PR stunts over the years. The company recently inked a deal with Portland, Ore., to bring Google Fiber and high-speed Internet to the city, Tech Times reports. This should help the company continue to grow beyond its origins as a search engine.
In many ways, the doodle with Venn diagrams is a great metaphor for how Google, as a company has many wires out there, but they are often linked and connected with the company's overall direction.
