Ever wondered about the creative tweaks of the Google logo on its website during festivals and special occasions? The design this Childrens Day (November 14) will be the handiwork of a school student from India. The National Institute of Design (NID) and search engine Google have teamed up for the Doodle4Google competition (the special logos are called doodles) open for any child in India studying between classes I and X. Google has conducted such competitions in the West,but this year it will reach out to the Indian students with the theme My India. The search engine has sent brochures to at least 10,000 schools and spread advertisements online. Faculty from the NID have volunteered to do the judging. The project began on August 5 when Google Indias Head of Consumer Marketing Arvind Desikan got in touch with Prof M P Ranjan,Head of Bamboo Initiatives at NID. Prof Ranjan got in touch with the NID faculty who were ready to volunteer to judge the designs submitted on paper by schoolchildren across the country. We were happy to do it. Its a great chance to spread awareness about design among children. Design is hardly recognised in this country, said Prof Ranjan. In a bid to encourage participation from students as also to ensure originality,Google is accepting only those designs from students which are drawn on paper. We are accepting only original designs on paper,not even scanned copies, said Desikan. Of the expected thousands of sheets,Google will shortlist the top 450 and bring them to NID early this month for the volunteer judges to take a look. The NID team includes animation head Shekhar Mukherjee,toy design head Gayatri Menon,communication design faculty Suresh Immanuel and NID Director Pradyumna Vyas. Besides,Google has roped in a number of designers and artists. The judges will identify about 60 of the best entries,which will be displayed on Googles website for a public vote. The most popular will be used as a doodle on Childrens Day. Though Google has not worked out how the rest of the good entries will be used,Desikan said the site would definitely love to showcase them on the website so that millions of users can see them.
