With the many scholarship opportunities offered to students through academia, a scholarship opportunity called Doodle For Google is a contest open to all grade school kids from around the world. As stated by junior Brenna Heavin, it is also a great way to not only earn scholarship money, but spread a message.

“For this year, the prompt is ‘for the future, I hope…’ and for the future, I want conservation and environmentalism to be a bigger focus, because we’ve kind of leaned back on that when it is something we all live in. I incorporated this idea by drawing my design within nature. I used a flower concept by drawing petals, and had the center of the flower be where I put the Google logo and trees, to show that what is in the center is what our focus should be on,” Heavin said.

According to an article published by Billings Gazette, in 2018, approximately 100,000 people in United States participated in Doodle For Google and with this incredibly insane amount of people partaking in this competition, a vast panel of judges examined each artwork. This panel ranged from actress Julie Bowen, astronaut Yvonne Cagle, Golden State Warriors’ basketball player Stephen Curry, professional soccer player Alex Morgan, director and animator Glen Keane, to writer, director and producer B.J. Novak. Even though this contest can be seen as competitive, Heavin believes each person obtains a special quality that if put into their drawing, can help them stand out.

“I think the judges will first off look for a drawing that is original, so not something they’ve seen before. They want something that’s eye-catching but with a message behind it and not just letters,” Heavin said.

However, while originality does play a factor into how each doodle is evaluated, technicality along with artistic skill and theme communication play a big part in who does and does not become a finalist. Heavin discusses how incorporating her design with the Google logo was the most challenging part of creating her drawing.

“I initially had a different idea for my doodle and it involved making the letters into different shapes, but it was really hard to try and come up with how I could make those look good. So instead, I decided to scrap all of that and I went with the simplistic drawings that I knew I could portray well” Heavin said.

Though assessing one’s weak points can come in handy, knowing what one does well can be beneficial in wanting others to notice that strength as well.

“I liked how I connected my theme to portray the image and I think that was one of the best things I did. It’s something different, that not a lot of people have seen before. The biggest message I want to get across isn’t the biggest part of the drawing, it’s the smallest part, but it’s plays onto what I’m trying to convey. The message I want to get across is also something I’m really passionate about, so I knew that that’s exactly what I wanted to talk about,” Heavin said.