KUALA LUMPUR (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - The doodle of a Malaysian teenager celebrating symbolic structures and images of his country will be splashed across the Google Malaysia homepage next week in conjunction with the Malaysia Day.
Coming in first in the Doodle 4 Google competition, the artwork Beauty Of Malaysia by 16-year-old Lee Yee Run featured iconic images, such as the KL Tower, national flower hibiscus and the Twin Towers, The Star website reported on Tuesday.
"Many of us may have been caught up in the hustle and bustle of life, missing out on the beauty of our country," said Lee, who also won in the 16 to 17 age category.
"Let's step out, travel to attractive spots, discover and embrace the true and unique colours of Malaysia," he said.
Malaysia Day, a public holiday that falls on Sept 16, marks the day when Malaya, North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore joined to form Malaysia in 1963.
Doodles are spontaneous changes made to the Google logo that have become a much loved staple of the Internet and created to celebrate holidays, anniversaries and the lives of famous artists, pioneers and scientists who have helped shape history.
Some popular doodles include Albert Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Ray Charles, the Pac Man doodle, World Cup and Olympic doodles, among others.
Although this is the first Doodle 4 Google competition held locally, it is not the first time Google has created a Malaysia-centric doodle.
The 2013 Elections, Yasmin Ahmad's 56th birthday and most recently, the 57th Merdeka Day doodle commissioned to artist Red Hong Yi have all been given the spotlight on google.com.my.
Google doodles are usually created internally by Google's doodle team but the company does make special exceptions, as in the case of Doodle 4 Google Malaysia.
Google Malaysia managing director Sajith Sivanandan said doodles submitted were judged on artistic merit, creativity and theme communication.
The winning doodles were selected using a two-step process involving Googlers and online votes by members of the public.
The official Google doodle team, made up of Google web designers, helped to select the grand prize doodle from the four age group category winners.
"The team worked hard to shortlist and curate 20 doodle designs that best embodied imagination and creativity two traits we value super highly at Google," said Sajith. "These best of the best were then listed for public online voting throughout the month of August."
The competition was launched in April this year, open to all Malaysian primary and secondary school students.
To see the other shortlisted doodles, visit http://www.google.com.my/doodle4google/.
