Google doodle honours Akira Yoshizawa

Google pays tribute to the grandmaster of origami, Akira Yoshizawa, through their homepage doodle. Yoshizawa was born on March 14, 1911, in Kaminokawa, Japan. His father was a dairy farmer.

He taught himself origami during his early childhood years, and used the craft to explain geometric calculations and problems to his fellow co-workers in a factory where he worked. In 1937, he quit his job and decided to pursue the art of origami making full-time. For 20 years, he lived in abject poverty before his professional career took off.

It is believed that his work for a 1951 issue of the magazine Asahi Graph, launched his career. According to other sources, it was an origami set of 12 zodiac signs commissioned by another magazine in 1954, that actaully did the trick.

In 1954 his first monograph, Atarashi Origami Geijutsu (New Origami Art) was published, in which he expanded on the Yoshizawa-Randlett system of notation for origami folds. It is a system of symbols, arrows and diagrams, which has become the standard for paperfolders. He then founded the International Origami Centre in Tokyo, in the same year.

He pioneered a technique called wet-folding, where the paper is first dampened before folding. This makes the sculptures look more alive, well rounded and polished.

In 1998, many years later, Yoshizawa was invited to exhibit his origami in the Louvre. A selfless craftsman, he never made his origami figures for monetary gain... He would always gift them to people or give them to museums and exhibitions to borrow.

The origami doodle on the Google homepage is a work by Robert J Lang, a leading origami artist.

The Google logo is a garden with butterflies. The butterfly design that Lang uses in the doodle is the one popularised by Yoshizawa himself.

Akira Yoshizawa died on his 94th birthday, March 14th, 2005, due to pneumonia.