Students Compete in Computer Fair Design Competition
Senior Jessica McDonald took first place in the Graphic Design category.
5 students participated in the PA High School Computer Fair Design Competition on March 22. The competition was held at the LIU #12 building in New Oxford, which represented schools from Franklin, York and Adams County..
The students who participated were: seniors Jessica McDonald, Emily Hellwig, Stephanie Gardecki, and Colton Mumley, and junior Stevie King. These five students participated in three of the six categories offered at the competition, and McDonald and King placed first place in their categories.
The six categories offered were: animation, computer fair logo, digital movie, graphic design, programming and web page design. McDonald placed first place in the graphic design category, and King placed first place in the computer fair logo category.
According to senior Jessica McDonald, the competition was a good opportunity for students who are interested in pursuing a career in graphic design to gain experience and speak to people already in the job field.
“It’s a competition for multiple different categories of computer-related things….It’s a way for all the people interested in anything relating to computers or technology to participate in a competition,” said McDonald. “It showed me all the stages of design, like creating the thumbnails and putting it together, and final products. At the end, the judge was a local graphic designer, so I got to talk to him.”
Senior Stephanie Gardecki participated in the graphic design category, where students created a fictitious Pet Business Company and created a logo and various stationary and branding products for the company. According to Gardecki, the day was spent setting up for the competition and then attending various sessions.
“The first thing we did was set up all the things that we made, and then there were three different sessions to go through. They were all like 50 minutes. There was one where there was a box with locks on it, and you were trying to solve puzzles, so some of them were fun. They announced the winners at the end,” said Gardecki.
Junior Stevie King participated in the logo design category in which students created a professional logo for the PA Computer Fair that is used for advertisement and branding. King found that while creating her design was a relatively short process, it helped improve her abilities and allowed her to see if graphic design could be a future career choice.
“I used [Adobe] Illustrator, which is similar to Photoshop. Planning took about a week and a half, and then I did an original concept which was completely different than the final one that I went with, so overall it took about two and a half weeks,” said King. “This was the first year that I have done anything graphic, and I really wanted to get into it as a possible career, so it really helped expand my horizons on that kind of stuff, and it gave me confidence about it.”
Junior Stevie King and senior Jessica McDonald will move on to the state competition on May 22 at Dickinson College.
Senior Emily Rivers has been on the Courier staff for two years. As well as being involved in the school’s news website, she is a member of the yearbook...
