Qixi Festival/Chilseok 2015

A love story for the ages unfolds every year on Chilseok, a folk holiday with origins in the Chinese Qixi Festival. According to popular myth, the celebration marks the one day a year when two separated lovers can reunite. Though the traditions vary from country to country, they can all be traced back to an old story of a young couple who are kept apart by a large river and forbidden to be together except for this one night.

On Chilseok, which takes place on the seventh day of the seventh month in the lunar calendar (and August 20th in this year’s standard calendar), crafty crows and magpies come to the rescue by forming a bridge over the water, allowing the two to finally reach each other. This romantic reunion is what Doodler Sophie Dao wanted to illustrate in today’s celebratory Doodle. We talked to her to find out how this Doodle came to be.

Google has celebrated Chilseok with Doodles before. Did you look at them before starting this year's?

Yes I did! I wanted to make sure my Chilseok doodle wasn't too similar, but still conveyed the same idea.

Did you know much about Chilseok before creating this Doodle?

I had heard a version of the fairytale from my parents when I was a kid, but I had to do more research to refresh my memory. To prepare for the doodle, I re-read the story and drew upon reference of traditional Korean clothing.

What were your design influences?

I was inspired by vintage astronomy posters and pictures of the Milky Way. I really liked photos where objects in space are backlit with really bright rimlight, and I wanted to convey that feeling in the Doodle. I also wanted to push the fantasy romance aspect of the fairytale, so I chose a dramatic color palette inspired by deep space photography.

As we’ve noted, Chilseok celebrates a popular fairy tale. Are there any other fairy tales you'd love to create a Doodle for one day?

I love Charles Perrault's Sleeping Beauty and the original Little Mermaid story by Hans Christian Andersen. I also really like the Chinese fairytales my parents used to tell me, like Journey to the West, which is quite well-known in the west, and Legend of the White Snake which is a bit less popular.