Graphic Design Competition for High School Students

_{At the end of the event, as a judge of the Graphic Design competition, I gave constructive advice so that the students could develop their skills in the future.}

On Tuesday, September 24, 2024, I was trusted to be a judge at an essay-based graphic design competition for high school students.

This graphic design competition activity was carried out by a group of student associations majoring in Islamic Education Management at IAIN Lhokseumawe. This competition raised the theme of technological development in the digital era.

In this competition, students are asked to design a work using the Canva application. They were given 1 hour to design a design in accordance with the theme, then they were given 5 minutes to present their work.

The judges and I observed the whole process of the participants, we walked around the participants who were designing their work.

_{I along with the other judges, observed the overall process of the participants as they worked on their designs.}

One by one I visited each team, I just focused on observing how they did each step and stage. I understood very well that I had a duty as a judge or assessment team, so I did not give any comments to the participants.

Some participants I observed had tried to create an interesting design according to their own version, I also observed some participants had made a very interesting design. However, there were some participants who in my opinion needed to be given some understanding of the concept of graphic design.

The 1 hour time given by the committee has run out, all participants are asked to send their work through the Google form link provided by the committee. The participants were given 15 minutes to submit their work.

The activity then continued with presentations from each group of participants who participated in the essay-based graphic design competition, each participant was given 5 minutes to explain the purpose and purpose of their work.

_{Each group of students presented their work in front of the judges.}

From the time given for 5 minutes many participants did not utilize it well, on average the participants ended their presentation at 3 to 4 minutes.

In fact, some participants were not able to present their work with clear aims and objectives, meaning that we can judge that they did not have a concept before doing the design, and did not have a good working relationship with what they had made.

But there were also some participants who already had a good concept and also cooperated between the designer and the one who presented the results.

After the participants finished presenting all of their designs, the next event continued with comments and suggestions from the judges. One by one, the judges came forward to explain what are the shortcomings that need to be improved in the future, as well as what are the strengths that need to be improved in the future.

The first judge explained about the importance of having a concept before doing graphic design activities, according to him the concept becomes the main foundation before designing. The second jury explained about the need to multiply references in designing, he explained that while in the world of graphic design he got a lot of references through the pinterest site.

Furthermore, when I was given the opportunity I emphasized the importance of the message or information to be conveyed through graphic design, because in my opinion graphic design is not just an activity to create visual images, but how we can convey messages specifically through these images.

_{Judge received souvenirs and certificates from the committee, which were handed over directly by the committee chairman.}

At the end of the event, the committee gave a plaque as a memento and certificate of appreciation to each judge. I personally express my deepest gratitude to the entire committee for organizing this event.

I think this graphic design competition activity is important to be carried out continuously and sustainably, especially for students, having graphic design skills can be an advantage for them.

Thus this article, hopefully useful and inspiring all who read it. Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to comment.

Greetings 🙏 @miftahulrizky