Google Doodle Concept/Ideas

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Chuseok (추석, 5th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar.)- is a major harvest festival and a three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar calendar. As a celebration of the good harvest, Koreans visit their ancestral hometowns and share a feast of Korean traditional food such as songpyeon. Other foods commonly prepared are japchae, bulgogi and fruits. Common folk games played on Chuseok are tug of war, archery, and ssireum (Korean wrestling). Folk games also vary from region to region. The Ganggangsullae dance, forming a circle under the moon is performed by women and children in southwestern coastal regions. They also play the Korean plank, a traditional game played by women on a wooden board.

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Tanabata (七夕, meaning "Evening of the seventh", July 7^th)- is a Japanese star festival, originating from the Chinese Qixi Festival. It celebrates the meeting of the deities Orihime and Hikoboshi (represented by the stars Vega and Altair respectively). According to legend, the Milky Way separates these lovers, and they are allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month of the lunisolar calendar. People generally celebrate this day by writing wishes on tanzaku (短冊), small pieces of paper, and hanging them on bamboo (wish tree), sometimes with other decorations.

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Gozan no Okuribi (五山送り火), or Daimonji (大文字, August 16^th)- is a festival in Kyoto, Japan. It is the culmination of the O-Bon festival on August 16, in which five giant bonfires are lit on mountains surrounding the city. It signifies the moment when the spirits of deceased family members, who are said to visit this world during O-Bon, are believed to be returning to the spirit world—thus the name Okuribi (送り火) (roughly, "send-off fire"). Starting at 8 PM, the giant bonfires are lit, each with a distinctive shape. The characters, their locations, meanings, and the lighting times are different. The most famous—and the first to be lit—is the character dai (大), on Kyoto's Daimonji-yama (大文字山 daimonjiyama). The other four fires are lit at five to ten-minute intervals, and by 8:30, all the characters can be seen. Each bonfire lasts for 30 minutes.

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Takashi Murakami’s/Superflat- is an internationally prolific contemporary Japanese artist. He works in fine arts media—such as painting and sculpture—as well as what is conventionally considered commercial media —fashion, merchandise, and animation— and is known for blurring the line between high and low art.

Murakami’s art encompasses a wide range of mediums and is generally described as superflat. His work has been noted for its use of color, incorporation of motifs from Japanese traditional and popular culture, flat/glossy surfaces, and content that could be described at once as “cute,” “psychedelic,” or “satirical”. Among his most famous recurring motifs are smiling flowers, iconic characters, mushrooms, skulls, Buddhist iconography, and the sexual complexes of otaku culture.

The Superflat theory posits that there is a legacy of flat, 2-dimensional imagery which has existed throughout Japanese art history and continues today in manga and anime. This style differentiates itself from the western approach in its emphasis on surface and use of flat planes of color. Superflat also served as a commentary on post-war Japanese society in which, Murakami argues, differences in social class and popular taste have ‘flattened,’ producing a culture with little distinction between ‘high’ and ‘low’.