Google, a work of art?

For any intern, research really is the name of the game and very quickly google becomes your best friend.

I appreciated the explosion of colour that burst onto my screen this morning when I first witnessed google’s ‘personalise your own’ background page - bright and colourful it instantly grabbed my attention, not so much for the opportunity to ‘make google my own’ as the official google blog states, but for the exposure to the work of artists such as Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness, Polly Apfelbaum, Kengo Kuma (隈研吾), Kwon, Ki-soo (권기수) and Tord Boontje, as well as some incredible photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand and National Geographic.

I am surprised to see that most people don’t feel the same. The addition of the feature has caused a flow of debate with the finger being pointed at google for copying Microsoft’s search engine Bing, who already offer a daily picture from around the world as their background. I just can’t see why it is such a problem for a search engine to introduce people to new things - and why many are so determined to keep google as sterile as possible.

I appreciate that David Naylor knows better than me about the logistics of these things, but I am pleased to say that I will be keeping my background for the 24 hours. A welcome injection of colour and creativity, I don’t understand why anyone would resort back to the white…