Surrey schoolboy's Google 'doodle' seen by 12 million » Communities » 24dash.com

Surrey schoolboy Daniel Thorne had the biggest audience of his life this week when his prize-winning 'doodle' got 12 million hits on the Google Search homepage.

Fifteen-year-old Daniel’s artwork had been chosen from 70,000 entries from 3,000 schools in Google’s competition to design a doodle around the theme of ‘My Community’.

For coming out on top Daniel had the thrill of seeing his doodle on the search engine’s home page for 24 hours and the satisfaction of knowing that about 12 million people had seen it.

The excitement doesn’t end there – Daniel has also won a week-long trip to California with his family, and on 16 October he will go to Google’s headquarters in central London to meet the Queen.

Daniel’s school, Howard of Effingham in Leatherhead, also benefits from his success, receiving an interactive white board.

Daniel said: "When trying to fit my doodle in to the theme of 'My Community' I used different pictures that normally feature in a community. For example, people close together on the letters, love hearts to symbolise relationships and colour to add more of an effect. The people are all different races but still are playing together in harmony. The rainbow symbolises peace and the joining of different communities."

Daniel added: "Out of so many entries it was a big shock when I found out that I had won. It is very exciting and it will be quite funny to meet the Queen. My family is really looking forward to the trip to California."

The competition was open to all UK school students between four and 16 years old, and the doodles were judged in four age brackets. A public online vote selected the four age group winners, but it was Dennis Hwang, Google’s webmaster and designer of the regular homepage logo designs, who picked Daniel’s work as the outstanding doodle.

Remarkably out of so many entries, another pupil at the school, 12-year-old Kate McCann, was also successful, winning the regional south-east category for her age group.

This wasn't Daniel's first success of the year. In January he came second in The Alternative Turner Prize, a competition run by Tate Liverpool which challenged young people between 13 and 25 years old to create a piece of artwork inspired by the four nominated artists in the 2007 Turner Prize.

Peter Martin, the county council’s Executive Member for Schools, Children and Youth Services, said: "For Daniel's artwork to be chosen from 70,000 entries and be seen by such a huge number of people is an extraordinary and very exciting achievement.

"And for two pupils from the same school both to be winners is all the more impressive. Daniel, Kate and the school should all be very proud."