Go for passion, Merrillville alumnus tells students
Ryan Germick sees his job creating Google Doodles as using technology to bring some humanity to the masses.
As the principal designer for Google Doodles, he has helped the company create illustrations that mark notable anniversaries or historical figures.
For the second or less that someone may see a Doodle on the search site, the goal is to reach or maybe inspire that person to learn more.
A 1998 Merrillville High graduate, Germick, 38, returned to the school on Thursday to talk about his career path and this year’s Google Doodle contest and answer questions from students.
Just after high school — in the dial-up internet era, before social media — his path to Silicon Valley was not pre-set, he told students.
The key was the path that he made for himself — exploring the world, tending to his own curiosity and coming up with creative solutions to problems.
While he was living in India, for example, he said he created his own website to update family on what he was doing to avoid steep international calling rates, he said.
Those skills eventually got him hired at Google, he said. It was something the students could do also, Germick told students.
Employers were just as likely to prize creativity, independent thinking and adventurous risk takers, he said.
Germick, who visited a handful of classes, spoke to packed student audiences.
He gave a presentation that included his path to Google and several notable Doodles that often highlighted little-known figures like the late Indian mathe- matician Shakuntala Devi, known as the “human calculator.” She made the 1982 Guinness Book of World Records for multiplying two 13-digit numbers in under 30 seconds.
Her Google Doodle was her face on an old-school calculator screen next to the word “Google” represented in a numeric form.
“Everybody sees Google, and I’ve seen every single one of those doodles that he’s shown,” said sophomore Jameelah Ali, 15.
She was struck by his message of bringing meaning through a bit of technology and how someone from Merrillville could have that kind of job.
“It’s really, really fascinating,” she said. “When you see someone like that, you’re just like, ‘That’s crazy.’ Any person in your class could actually be like that. It’s cool.”
Growing up, Germick excelled at art, taking classes at the Visual and Performing Arts Center in Munster. Other notable influences included painter Bob Ross on PBS.
Watching Ross on PBS “solidified to me a calling,” he told students.
After high school, he attended the Parsons School of Design in New York City, studying with graphic designer Frank Olinsky, his senior adviser, who helped create the MTV logo.
After college, he spent time traveling, teaching English in Japan and also living in India, he said. Google hired him in 2006.
“I didn’t have a straight path into tech,” he told students.
The first Google Doodle came out in August 1998 with a blue outline of the Burning Man effigy over the logo’s second “o.” Company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin put in on the main page while they were off to the Nevada festival.
Since then, the website has had 2,000 doodles worldwide, according to its website.
After Germick’s hire, he went from creating icons, like the yellow stick guy in Google Maps, to working with other illustrators and engineers to make the Doodles a more sophisticated presence on the search site.
His first Google Doodle marked St. George’s Day in April 2008, Germick said. Since then he has worked on several others including the 2010 PAC-MAN Doodle that was a mini-game folks could play in the screen.
This year, Google again is holding a national contest asking students to submit their own doodles. More information can be found at doodles.google.com/d4g.