The Making of the Google Doodle: Veterans Day 2025
A Google Surprise:
I drew the 2025 Veteran’s Day Google Doodle!
Happy Veteran's Day :)
I've been keeping a secret for months and am so excited to share with you this news. Read all about it below!
About the Doodle
It's a Google tradition to use a veteran artist for the "G-O-O-G-L-E" letters each Veterans Day. They reached out to me looking for a specific feeling: one of home, that special place that a veteran holds in their heart when they are away from it. We worked tirelessly for two months, creating over 25 versions until we finally came to this.
I say "we," because while every version came from my hands, there were countless conversations, video calls, and coordinating with various committees within Google to think through everything we possibly could. It was truly a team effort.
The final doodle depicts a hypothetical still life in a veterans home. Creating for a broad veteran audience while making the still life somewhat believable and turning them into letters was a challenge! But ultimately, the art director and I came to this final version and we are all so excited about it.
By the Letter:
G: The main "G" is a house plant, and throughout all our edits, this motif stayed. The plant represents all the things tended to in a home, and is a nod to incredible effort the families on the homefront give in support of the veteran.
O: Each good conduct medal for each service, in hierarchical order. We went back and forth many times on how to talk about the services. There are so many motifs we could have gone with, but we collectively decided on the medals because they were more recognizable than other uniform items. We knew only enlisted sailors wore the medals, but opted for that direction since that makes up the bulk of the military and leading enlisted servicemembers is the whole point of being an officer!
O: A framed ensign, which can carry meaning in different ways, but grounds the image in the patriotism of the service.
G: A playful depiction of home. A faceless family portait, a ribbon of celebratory flags, and a poppy. The poppy is a nod to Armistice Day, marking the end of WWI and the original name of Veterans Day.
L: An eagle, because America! For most of the project, this was actually a swallow. Those birds are special to the Navy and to me personally, as they have become symbolic of home within my paintings. Ultimately the swallow was cut because it was too in favor of Navy, and we went with the eagle as a more universal symbol for all services.
E: The coin rack! A favorite military tradition. We tried a lot of different objects for the E, assuming the coins would be too small. With some creative license, we found a way to make it work and I'm so glad it made the final cut!
Did you know?
All the Google Doodles live forever in their Doodle library. While this one will only be up today, you can find it and all the others at the button below. It's fun to poke around!
