Ready， Set...Doodle！

Katherine

導讀：去年谷歌舉辦了每年一度的涂鴉大賽，大賽要求參賽選手使用給定的主題來重新設計谷歌徽標，讓我們一起來了解一下吧！

Your creativity should never be limited. Its what makes you...you！ Google is asking students through 12th grade across the United States to explain “What makes me...me” for this years Doodle 4 Google contest. Students are given a chance to redesign the famous Google logo using that theme.

The idea for this theme came from the thought of artists painting self-portraits. “Google wanted to take the idea of a self-portrait and spread it， and have kids not just draw themselves but also let them find out what makes them special and different，” Jennifer Hom told TFK. Hom has been an artist on the Doodle team for the past six years.

A Challenging Contest

Doodles must use the letters G-o-o-g-l-e， but can be created in any medium—drawing， food， video， or anything else. The Doodles are judged on artistic skills， creativity， and communication of the contest theme.

The Doodle team will decrease many entries from students across the country—last year there were more than 100，000！ Guest judges， including basketball player Stephen Curry and actress Julie Bowen， will select the finalists. To select the final national winner， people will vote for their favorite online. Google will give $50，000 to the winners school to create or improve a computer lab， $30，000 to the winners personal college， a trip to Googles home， and more. The winner also gets to have his or her Doodle on Google.com for one day.

The Art of Doodling

Larry Page and Sergey Brin， the co-fathers of Google， created the first Doodle in 1998， as an out-of-office message when they went to an art festival. Since then， more than 2，000 Doodles have been created.

The Doodle team has about twelve artists and six engineers， including Jonathan Shneier. The engineers make it possible for some Google Doodles to become animated， like the recent Halloween Doodle. “When theres a game， or something you can play with， the engineers are generally the ones who build that，” explains Shneier. Hom says that kids are welcome to create entries for the contest.

It takes the Doodle team anywhere from six weeks to five months to create a Doodle. The team has weekly meetings where they share ideas for future Doodles. Other Google workers are also encouraged to share ideas.

Artists create still images for Doodles first. If the Doodle will have animation or music， engineers develop that after. If a Doodle is hard to create， many people work together to achieve it. Doodlers research events， such as a kite festival in India， to create fitting designs.

Vocabulary

limit v. 限制

theme n. 主題

self-portrait n. 自畫像

challenge n.&v. 挑戰(zhàn)

entry n. 參賽人數(shù)，參賽作品

animated v. 動畫的（動畫片animation）

（Do you like doodling？ Have you ever tried to doodle？）