Google celebrates Herman Rorschach 129th birthday with inkblot Doodle

Google has had a storied history of honoring special events or people throughout history through Google Doodles.

In celebration of the 129th birthday of renowned psychiatrist Herman Rorschach, Google created a new Google Doodle which includes a changing inkblot for each time a user refreshes the page. A cartoon version of the Freudian psychiatrist sits in the background in a chair alongside the interactive inkblots as the Google logo is spelled out in the photos and windows behind him.

Topping the Google Pacman idea from 2010, Google is allowing users to share their interpretation of the inkblots through social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

While many may remember a certain masked vigilante with a name inspired by the Swiss psychiatrist, Rorchach developed an interest in art and drawing. He would later analyze the artwork of mental patients before turning to inkblots. Those inkblots would be the bases for his 1921 book, Psychodiagnostik, a book that described how inkblots could be used as a tool in psychoanalysis.

Rorchach would die due to complications following a ruptured appendix at the age of 37 in 1922, a year after the book was published. The lasting effects of his findings continue to be used today.

Here are some interpretations of the inkblots from Twitter:

Recently, Google Doodle honored “Queen of Salsa” Celia Cruz, physicist C.V. Raman, and mathematician Shakuntala Devi, among others.