Akira Yoshizawa Google Doodle: Getting Paid for Origami and Other Strange Things
A few butterflies and six folded letters spell Google? Well that isn't what Google's image usually looks like, but today the company is celebrating origami and the man who is said to be the master of the art.
Today marks the 101st birthday of Akira Yoshizawa, who has been credited with transforming origami into an art form.
"We're celebrating one of the all-time great origami artists- Akira Yoshizawa- with a logo folded by Robert Lang!" tweeted Marissa Mayer, vice president of location and local services at Google.
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What may come as surprising to some is that Yoshizawa has made an entire career out of folding paper. While he started in a Tokyo factory working as a technical draftsman, it wasn't long before his passions had overtaken him. Yoshizawa began using origami to explain basic geometry concepts to fellow workers.
After discovering that he cared more about his geometry lessons than his job, Yoshizawa up and quit in 1937 to dedicate himself to the art of Origami.
In 1950 a Japanese magazine published an issue which featured Yoshizawa's origami folded into Astrology signs. The issue earned him some notoriety and Yoshizawa later founded the International Origami Centre in Tokyo.
In a 2009 survey, CareerBuilder.com asked more than 2,450 workers to share the most interesting or unconventional jobs they held during their careers. What other unusual things have people made a living off of?
One woman got paid to be a stand-in bridesmaid for weddings in which the bride didn't have enough friends.
Other odd answers included jelly donut filler, a hot rod builder, a bingo announcer, and member of a rescue squad for pets.
