You may have noticed the addition of a new link in the bottom left-hand corner of Google’s homepage. Last week Google introduced the ability to customize the background of its homepage, “making your search experience more relevant, useful and fun through personalization.” Put another way, they must have picked up on the success of competitor Bing’s background offerings and decided to give its users a similar option. You can set your background image from your computer, your own Picasa Web Album, or a public gallery hosted by Picasa after logging into your Google account. Now that the feature has rolled out internationally, Google feels the need to “inspire” its users to personalize by featuring a selection of well-known artists, sculptors and photographers on all Google homepages for the next 24 hours. The collection includes works from Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness, Polly Apfelbaum, Kengo Kuma (隈研吾), Kwon, Ki-soo (권기수) and Tord Boontje, and photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand and National Geographic. Inspired yet?
Update: Google took down the featured images earlier than expected. Hello good ol’ minimalism.