Google’s homepage gets customised full screen images and artwork

Google recently announced a spanking new feature that lets users add their own photo or image to the background of their Google.com homepage.

Well, we say ‘new’ but it makes the Google search screen look almost exactly the same as Bing’s (without the funky interactive bits) but it’s still a nice way to brighten up the page, and you can have your own photographic masterpiece adorning the page.

Images can be selected from your computer or from your Picasa Web Album, but in an attempt to kick start the feature, Goggle have roped in some posh artists, sculptors and photographers to create a gallery of background images for your perusal.

Artists include Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness and Polly Apfelbaum plus some ace photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand and National Geographic.

There’s certainly some striking images in there, but one or two are perhaps a bit much on the eyes and wouldn’t be best appreciated at 9am after a fierce night on on the tiles.

Google will be automatically serving up these images as backgrounds on the Google homepage over the next 24 hours, and after that you’ll have to pick ’em yourself.