Sabrina Brady, a high school student from Wisconsin, bagged the top prize for the U.S. 2013 Doodle 4 Google competition. Her work titled "Coming Home" was featured Thursday on the homepage of Google in the United States.
Brady's doodle reflected what she felt when her father came home from Iraq after an 18-month tour of duty. The image shows a girl in black and white holding a flag and running toward her father in uniform. The scene ends with a big hug giving the color back to the child's life. Of course, the letters of Google were incorporated to highlight every step of the child.
The work depicting the reunion of a child with her father bested more than 130,000 submissions from students across the U.S. The contest asked for Google Doodles that interpret the theme "My Best Day Ever."
"From scuba diving to dinosaurs to exploring outer space, we were wowed by the ways young artists brought their best days to life in their doodles," Ryan Germick, Doodle Team Lead, described the entries on its official blog.
"Her creative use of the Google letters to illustrate this heartfelt moment clearly resonated with voters across the country and all of us at Google," Germick said of Brady's work.
Aside from seeing her work on the homepage of the search engine, the 12th grader from Sparta High School also received a college scholarship worth $30,000 and a Chromebook computer. Her school also received a technology grant amounting to $50,000.
According to the blog post, Brady will go to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design this fall where she will pursue her love for the arts.
The 2013 contest also named four national finalists: Joseph Han from Maine for his work "Late-afternoon Bliss"; Maria Iannone from New Jersey for "The Best Day Ever"; Audrey Zhang from New York for "When I Discover Paradise"; and Reagan Gonsalves from Arizona for "My Best Day Ever Is Learning About Nature." The finalists received college scholarship worth $5,000.
The State Winners of the Google 4 Doodle will have their works included at an exhibition in New York at the Museum of National History. The artworks will be showcased from May 22 to July 14.
