Google Logo Pays Tribute to Martha Graham, Next Gen Doodlers

Google keeps raising the bar on its homepage logo treatments. We loved last month's Google logo nod to Charlie Chaplin, and today — to celebrate what would have been Martha Graham's 117th birthday — the Google.com homepage features an animated (dance-imated?) version of its logo, which the search engine giant prefers to call a doodle.

American animator Ryan Woodward worked with a dancer from Graham's New York-based company to interpret the Google letters in a motion graphics tribute to the mother of modern dance, as seen below. Each letter, according to the Graham Center for Contemporary Dance, represents a different dance from Graham's celebrated career.

As for the next generation of Google Doodlers, the 40 student finalists in this year's Doodle 4 Google competition were just announced and online voting is now open to the public through May 13.

The winning student, of more than 107,000 submissions in the US-only competition, will receive a $15,000 college scholarship and a $25,000 technology grant for their school, and see their artwork appear on the Google.com homepage on May 20.

Google asked US Olympic gold medal skater Evan Lysacek to help congratulate the regional finalists:

The K-3 finalists:

Grades 4-6 finalists:

Grades 7-9 finalists:

Grades 10-12 finalists: