A teenager from the Seattle area has come out on top in this year's national Doodle for Google art competition, and rather than keep the moment to herself, she used it to give back to another school. Kamira Johnson, who is 18 years old, earned the top honors in the nationwide contest with a design built around a theme that was deeply personal to her. Her win has drawn attention not only for the artwork itself but for what she chose to do with the prize that came with it.
The competition asked students to illustrate the prompt my superpower is. Johnson chose her hair, and specifically black hair, as her answer. I always found power and strength in what makes us different, specifically my people, she explained. She said she grew up in a generation where she could look at a screen, read books and see people who looked like her, and she wanted her design to carry that same sense of representation forward for others.
The winning doodle represents Johnson alongside her mother and her sister. One of the figures wears a single braid, another has two Afro puffs, and a third has a mix of cornrows and braids. By weaving those details into the Google logo, she turned a familiar piece of branding into a portrait of family, identity and shared heritage, rather than something generic.
The national prize included a 50,000 dollar Google technology package intended for the winner's school. Johnson had just graduated from Lakeside School, a private school in the Seattle area, but she decided the resources would do more good somewhere else. She directed the package instead to Rainier Beach High School, a school she said would be able to use the support more than her own.
According to Johnson, the response to that decision was emotional. She said the principal of Rainier Beach High School started crying when her father delivered the news that the technology package was coming to their campus rather than to Lakeside. For Johnson, the choice was about directing attention and resources toward a community she felt could benefit the most from them.
Johnson grew up drawing and painting, but she said her real focus is on community and on creating social change through her actions. At the end of the day, if it doesn't make an impact, or if it doesn't make somebody feel something, it's kind of all pointless, she said. With the competition behind her, she is now preparing to attend New York University in the fall.