The Google Artist

Profile of Dennis Hwang-the brain behind the Google's logos;

Hwang, 28, manages a team of 23 people charged with keeping Google’s heavily visited pages technically fit, fast and sleek, but he also has charge of the whimsical drawings that adorn the Google logo on holidays such as Valentine’s Day, special occasions such as the Olympics, and offbeat little commemorations such as artist Edvard Munch’s birthdate. Hwang is modest about his celebrity, but admits he gets hundreds of fan e-mails every time a new doodle posts, sometimes thousands if he’s done something “particularly surprising,” he says.

As we sit in one of high-flying Google’s posh, free-to-employees cafeterias (fennel crème fraîche, anyone?), it’s a tad ironic when Hwang explains that he came to Stanford with “every intention of becoming a starving artist.” Hwang was born in Knoxville, Tenn., but he grew up in Korea, where his father was a professor of environmental geography at the University of Seoul. From his earliest years, Hwang was consumed by art, although frustrated by how it was taught in Korea. “They have a very methodical way of teaching. When you’re doing a still life, they expect you to accurately measure the dimensions so that, in the ideal situation, everyone’s work looks identical.”