Google World Cup Doodle Switzerland
Earlier this year, I got an email from the Google Doodle team asking me to participate in their Football World Cup Doodle project: For every nation playing the cup a local illustrator would draw a doodle that would give the viewer the opportunity to learn something about the country through the lens of football. Was I in? Of course I was in.
Apart from the brief mentioned before there were only two elements that had to be included, they looked like this:
Apart from the brief mentioned before there were only two elements that had to be included, they looked like this:
Doodling
In a first round the doodle team just wanted to see 3-4 different ideas. So i set out to analyze my country and its relationship to football. What's so special about Swiss football? Here's my first shot at a couple of different approaches.
In a first round the doodle team just wanted to see 3-4 different ideas. So i set out to analyze my country and its relationship to football. What's so special about Swiss football? Here's my first shot at a couple of different approaches.
1. Switzerland has four different spoken languages
French in the west, Swiss German in the north, Italian in the south part of the alps and Rumantsch in the mountain valleys of the east. Like nothing else the World Cup unifies the people across geographical and lingual barriers and gives us all a common cause we can agree to cheer for.
French in the west, Swiss German in the north, Italian in the south part of the alps and Rumantsch in the mountain valleys of the east. Like nothing else the World Cup unifies the people across geographical and lingual barriers and gives us all a common cause we can agree to cheer for.
2: Silhouette Paper cut art
A (very) traditional and folkloristic Swiss artform, used mainly to depict rural and alpine scenes, for example cows being guided to their stables etc. All in black and white. Instead of this I wanted to draw a typical pre-match scene in Switzerland: Everyone heading to their viewing spot of choice, on foot, by bike, by rubber boat, carrying supplies, sausages, drinks, camping chairs.
A (very) traditional and folkloristic Swiss artform, used mainly to depict rural and alpine scenes, for example cows being guided to their stables etc. All in black and white. Instead of this I wanted to draw a typical pre-match scene in Switzerland: Everyone heading to their viewing spot of choice, on foot, by bike, by rubber boat, carrying supplies, sausages, drinks, camping chairs.
3. Mountainous playing field
Switzerland isn‘t exactly a football giant, the mere fact that we‘re playing at the world cup always feels like a lot of hard work and is never taken for granted. Also, the team can be quite a tough opponent on a good day :-) I tried to depict this with a hilly playing field which also echoes the Swiss landscape.
Switzerland isn‘t exactly a football giant, the mere fact that we‘re playing at the world cup always feels like a lot of hard work and is never taken for granted. Also, the team can be quite a tough opponent on a good day :-) I tried to depict this with a hilly playing field which also echoes the Swiss landscape.
4. Swiss Design
An attempt to apply Switzerlands love of order and clean design on football. If only it were that simple. A bit of a throwaway joke here, but I really liked the idea.
An attempt to apply Switzerlands love of order and clean design on football. If only it were that simple. A bit of a throwaway joke here, but I really liked the idea.
Decision time
The Doodle team was immediately intrigued by the paper cut, but wondered if I could introduce colors into the scene. And mountains as well, it's Switzerland after all. Since these paper cut artworks are held traditionally in black and white, bringing in color is an unorthodox move. But it allowed me to include more details which would have been difficult to pull off in monochrome. I really liked the result.
The Doodle team was immediately intrigued by the paper cut, but wondered if I could introduce colors into the scene. And mountains as well, it's Switzerland after all. Since these paper cut artworks are held traditionally in black and white, bringing in color is an unorthodox move. But it allowed me to include more details which would have been difficult to pull off in monochrome. I really liked the result.
After that all it took was some more polishing, and Bob was my uncle. If you can't see the difference between the version on top and below you're not alone. I mainly sharpened the edges of the vegetation to make it appear more papercut-like and changed the ball in the middle.
Well, that was fun! Thanks a bunch to Erich Nagler, Vrinda Zaveri, Colin Duffy and the whole Doodle team!
Make sure to check out all the fantastic doodles by the artists from the other participating countries.
