Google is honoring the life of of Charles Dickens with a special Google Logo, aka Doodle, for his 200th birthday. The logo contains several characters from some of his more well known works. The characters include:

• Nell and her grandfather in the The Old Curiosity Shop
• Several characters from Little Dorrit
• Oliver and his friends from Oliver Twist
• Estella and Pip from Great Expectations
• A French aristocrat as a reference to his eventual death by guillotine.
• Ebenezer Scrooge
• And a vivid depiction of London in the background.

The Googler Doodler who made this Google logo for Dickens is Mike Dutton who also created the logos for Richard Scarry, the Royal Wedding, the World Cup, Mary Blair, and others.

Google said:

Mike said that while he normally works on his tablet, he had to go back to a physical drawing board for the Dickens doodle, creating each character separately so that he could place them within different parts of the Google logo. Like an engineer, he likes to iterate on what he designs until he gets it right.

You can learn more about the creation of this Google logo at the Google blog.

Charles Dickens died at the age of 58 on June 9, 1870 at Gad’s Hill Place, Higham, Kent, England. He was married and had ten children.

Other Google Logos:

• Google Logo For Largest Observed Snowflake
• Google Blackens Its Logo To Protest SOPA/PIPA, While Bing & Yahoo Carry On As Usual
• Google Honors Martin Luther King Jr. Day With “I Have A Dream” Logo
• Google Logo For Nicolas Steno: Father Of Modern Geology
• Google Logo Honors Addams Family Creator, Charles Addams
• 2012 New Year’s Day Logos From The Search Industry
• Google’s 2011 Happy Holidays Logo: Dancing Christmas Lights & Jingle Bells
• Google Adds Christmas & Hanukkah Decorations To Search Results
• Google’s Let It Snow Easter Egg
• Google Revamps The Google Doodles (Logos) Directory
• The Robert Noyce Google Microchip Logo

Did you know that today, 125 years ago, in Fort Keogh, Montana, the largest snowflake was documented and placed in the world record book? The snowflake was 38 centimeters in diameter!

But honestly, I am even more amazed that someone actually documented this as a world record. And even more amazed Google has a special logo, aka Doodle, to remember the special day.

This may go into the world record book as one of the weirdest Google logos ever dreamed up by a Google Doodler?

More Google Logos:

• Google Gumby Logo For 90th Birthday Of Creator Art Clokey
• Google Logo Honors Mary Blair, Disney Artist
• Richard Scarry Gets Google Logo
• All The “Mr Men & Little Miss” Google Logos For Roger Hargreaves Birthday
• Will Eisner Google Logo
• Google’s Paul Cézanne Logo
• Google Logo For Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post
• Scooby-Doo Google Logo For Halloween
• The Flintstones Google Logo: Yabba-Dabba Do!

This year’s contest theme is “If I could travel in time, I’d visit…”. Students in grades K-12 have until March 20th to enter, and it’s even easier this time around — no registration is required. All of the entry details can be found at google.com/doodle4google.

Other changes this year include the naming of five finalists and one winner from all 50 states. Celebrity judges this year include Katy Perry, Jordin Sparks and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh – creator of the kids’ show Phineas and Ferb. From those 50 state winners, public voting will choose five national finalists and one ultimate winner.

The winning Google logo will appear on a box of Crayola crayons and on the Google home page on May 18th.

While some sites like Wikipedia are going black for the day on Wednesday, Google has instead chosen to cover its logo in black and add a short message on its home page: Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!

The message links to a new End Piracy, Not Liberty page where Google is encouraging visitors to sign a petition against the legislation and sharing this message:

Two bills before Congress, known as the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House, would censor the Web and impose harmful regulations on American business. Millions of Internet users and entrepreneurs already oppose SOPA and PIPA.

The Senate will begin voting on January 24th. Please let them know how you feel. Sign this petition urging Congress to vote NO on PIPA and SOPA before it is too late.

The page also includes a PDF/infographic detailing the groundswell of opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

If you’re not familiar with SOPA (and its Senate counterpart, PIPA), see Chris Sherman’s article on Marketing Land, What All Marketers Need To Know About SOPA – The Stop Online Piracy Act.

What About Bing, Yahoo & Other Search Engines

Meanwhile, as of this moment, both Bing and Yahoo are carrying on in a business-as-usual mode.

Microsoft issued a statement today saying that it does oppose “the SOPA bill as currently drafted,” but neither Microsoft.com nor Bing.com make any mention right now of that opposition. Here’s the current Bing home page, which has a scenic photo of Norway.

Likewise, neither Yahoo.com nor its search-only home page at search.yahoo.com are showing anything related to the legislation or protests, unless you count the appearance of “PIPA” as No. 9 on Yahoo’s “Trending Now” topics.

There’s also nothing currently showing on Ask.com’s home page, but a PR rep for IAC notified us earlier tonight that Ask will “donate” ad space on its home page to voice its opposition to the legislation. The ad space, we’re told, will link to this OpenCongress.org page with details about SOPA and tools for people to contact their representatives.

Postscript: Although Yahoo.com isn’t showing anything related to SOPA/PIPA, Yahoo’s Flickr photo sharing site has gotten involved by letting users darken any photo on the site — their own or anyone else’s. (Photo owners can opt out of having their photos darkened.) Here’s one of my recent photos that I’ve darkened:

Postscript #2: Duck Duck Go has joined the ranks of search engines that are protesting SOPA/PIPA. Here’s what its homepage looks like today.

Related Stories

• Big List Of SOPA Links
• What All Marketers Need To Know About SOPA – The Stop Online Piracy Act
• The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) Stalls In Congress
• #BlackoutSOPA: A Look At The Social Media Movement That Helped Stall The SOPA Legislation
• How To Blackout Your Site (For SOPA/PIPA) Without Hurting SEO
• Google Blackens Its Logo To Protest SOPA/PIPA, While Bing & Yahoo Carry On As Usual
• Why The Web Is Going Dark Over SOPA & PIPA

King’s birthday was yesterday — he would’ve been 83 years old — but the U.S. celebrates his holiday on the third Monday of January no matter what the exact date is. MLK Day was signed into law in 1983 and was first observed in 1986.

Today’s doodle is the work of African-American artist and author Faith Ringgold.

Yahoo does not have an MLK-themed logo today, but Bing’s homepage photo is of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial in Washington, DC.

Today’s special Google Logo, aka Google Doodle, celebrates the life of Nicolas Steno, the father of modern geology.

The logo symbolizes the study of the earth, from the ocean to the mountain tops. In Google Doodle fashion, the art makes up the letters of Google’s name, and this one has the Google colors as well.

Nicolas Steno was born 374 years ago on 1638 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He along with James Hutton founded what we know today as geology, the study of Earth. He died at the age of 48 in Schwerin, Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin on December 5, 1686.

Pope John Paul II beatified Nicolas Steno for his work and contributions to the world. To learn more about his life, see Wikipedia.

More Google Logos:

• Google Gumby Logo For 90th Birthday Of Creator Art Clokey
• Google Logo Honors Mary Blair, Disney Artist
• Richard Scarry Gets Google Logo
• All The “Mr Men & Little Miss” Google Logos For Roger Hargreaves Birthday
• Will Eisner Google Logo
• Google’s Paul Cézanne Logo
• Google Logo For Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post
• Scooby-Doo Google Logo For Halloween
• The Flintstones Google Logo: Yabba-Dabba Do!

The black-and-white drawing, created courtesy of the Tee & Charles Addams Foundation, features seven common characters from The Addams Family (L-R): Morticia, Gomez, Thing (sorry, that’s Cousin Itt), Pugsley, Wednesday, Lurch and Uncle Fester. (Where’s Grandmama?!)

New Jersey’s Star-Ledger newspaper has a great write-up on Addams, which explains that he first drew the Addams Family in 1938 for The New Yorker magazine. The cartoons were adapted into a TV series (that I watched regularly in my youth) and a pair of films in 1991 and 1993.

Addams died in 1988; today, January 7, would’ve been his 100th birthday.

Google has a history of featuring artists/illustrators like Addams in its special homepage logos/doodles. Here are some of our past stories about art/cartoon-related Google logos:

• Google Gumby Logo For 90th Birthday Of Creator Art Clokey
• Google Logo Honors Mary Blair, Disney Artist
• Richard Scarry Gets Google Logo
• All The “Mr Men & Little Miss” Google Logos For Roger Hargreaves Birthday
• Will Eisner Google Logo
• Google’s Paul Cézanne Logo
• Google Logo For Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post
• Scooby-Doo Google Logo For Halloween
• The Flintstones Google Logo: Yabba-Dabba Do!

Similar characters/artists have been featured further back in the past, too, such as Dilbert, Astro Boy and Paddington Bear.

We wanted to share with you the logos and themes from the search engines for New Years! Google had two different logos, one for New Years Eve and the other for New Years Day.

Bing had an outstanding video home page background:

Yahoo had this nice Flash animated logo:

Ask.com:

Dogpile:

Baidu:

Sogou:

Also, you do not want to miss the best Google logos for 2011.

The special logo, or “doodle” as Google calls them, starts out with an all-white background:

Push any note, and the logo lights up with the Google name as Christmas lights:

As you click more of the buttons, a xylophone sound plays, and the letters keep changing into decorations:

After you’ve clicked all the lights, a complete multimedia production with dancing lights begins, with a short version of “Jingle Bells” playing that’s just begging for a sing-a-long. Our Barry Schwartz made a video showing the Google Happy Holidays logo in action, from start to finish:

Click here to view the embedded video.

There was a static logo that some spotted earlier today. Perhaps it was posted accidentally or that way while Google’s web team worked out the final details/coding/etc. on this more elaborate Happy Holidays logo. But that’s just idle speculation on my part.

Don’t forget, you can also search for “Let It Snow” on Google right now to make it “snow” across your search results, as we’ve covered earlier. And searches on Google for Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa bring up special decorations.

And if you have little ones, see our Where’s Santa Claus? The 2011 Santa Tracker List, From NORAD To Your Phone! story.

The Christmas version shows Christmas ornaments hanging from the top bar:

The Hanukkah version shows Jewish stars across the top bar:

In the past they placed these decorations as a border for separating the AdWords ads and the free organic results.

Hanukkah started last night and Christmas is just around the corner.

I still do not see any decorations for [kwanzaa] – but that might come soon.

Postscript: Shortly after this post, Google added the Kwanzaa decorations:

Related Stories:

• Google Christmas Trees & Kwanzaa Flag Joins Chanukah Dreidel
• Google’s Everything Icon A Chanukah Driedel