Skills Show Australia 2018
In 2018 I had the privileged of going forth to represent WA in the 2018 WorldSkills Australian National Championships, where I won the Bronze Medal in Graphic Design Technology. I was up against two competitors from every state including our own, on a three-day intensive competition where a new brief was given each day. These competitors including myself were all state level champions from 2017, who won their respective regional WorldSkills comps, for myself Gold, for Perth North.
Each day, you were marked out of a score of 33.33 in 9 categories, most being out of 3.33, your score being the average given from three judges. Zero performance below industry standard, one performance meets industry standard, two performance meets and, in some specific aspects, exceeds industry standard, three performance wholly exceeds industry standard and is judge as excellent being somewhat competent, two doing everything that was expected, and three exceeding expectations. All the categories for the three days somewhat varied from brief to brief but included - file organisation, interpretation of client brief, typography, design, image preparation, colour use and application, measurement and sizing, logo specifics, creative and practicalities, map specifics, assembly.
I missed out on silver by 0.36 points and gold by 2.69 points out of a total of 100 points. So, the comp was close. Each day you had a total of 7 hours (apart from day three, where you had only three hours) to finish all the work, and each day each new brief was heavily detailed with requirements for the outcome and for specs. Day one was everyone finding their footing, the requirements were to follow the detailed brief closely and to make a Logo for a Railway Heritage company, make a 4-page brochure, and map a large-scale pull-out banner. Day two was creating a logo for a youth housing foundation, along with a large-scale A1 poster, to go in the lobby and to investors, a t-shirt for volunteers and assistants, and a totem sized singular signage piece. Day three was to create the packaging ready for the press, dielines and all, for a children’s smart watch. There were two boxes for it, one in the other, a max of three glue folds, you also had to mock it up. Interestingly enough, I had the highest score anyone did on any of three days, on day two 27.10 out of 33.33 and so said day, everyone left from 40 minutes to two hours early, I finished early also but stayed to refine and improve upon my work, hence why in the top photo I am the only one working.
