Southern California middle-schooler’s doodle could be featured on Google homepage
A middle school student from Orange County has been chosen to represent California in the annual Doodle for Google contest.
Each year, hundreds of students across the U.S. submit their artwork with a new interpretation of the famous Google typeface in hopes of having their work displayed on the search engine’s homepage.
The contest is open to students from kindergarten through 12th grade in all 50 states, Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, freely associated territories and U.S. military bases.
Entries are eventually whittled down to the top 55, with one artist representing each state or region. Those regional winners are separated into five categories based on age and grade level, and one winner will be chosen from each of those categories before an overall winner is selected.
Doodles are judged on artistic merit, creativity and how well the artist communicated the theme.
Yanuo Li of Laguna Niguel, a student at West California Academy of Art and Design in San Gabriel, was chosen to represent California and is competing in the 6-7th grade category.
This year, Google is celebrating its 25th anniversary and artists were asked to convey their wish for the next 25 years through their artwork. Some artists depicted safer communities, a cleaner planet or technological breakthroughs.
Li chose a personal interpretation of the prompt.
“My wish for the next 25 years is, I wish my family would laugh more, watch sunsets more, eating dinner together, family would stay together and that no one would die alone,” Li wrote. “In this drawing, I drew a family that loves each other, a family that would risk their lives to each other, a family that would be there for each other, a family that would be patient with others’ shortcomings.”
Now that the 55 territory and state winners have been selected, voting is underway for the five finalists and eventual winner.
Li has already received some Google products and a message from the company for being selected California’s winner. Prizes for being a top five finalist include a $5,000 scholarship.
The national winner gets all that and more with a $55,000 college scholarship, $50,000 worth supplies and tech package for their school or organization, a personalized trophy and, of course, the chance to see their artwork on the front page of the world’s most popular search engine.
To see the full list of regional winners and to vote for your favorite, click here.
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