Towards the beginning of my Freshman year of high school I signed up for a pin design competition that my school was promoting. Somebody I knew recommended to me that I should sign up, but I didn’t want to at first because I wasn’t the type of person to get involved in extracurricular activities other than sports. I had just started high school and didn’t want to take on more than I could handle. Also in order for me to design a pin, I would have to use a complicated program called Adobe Illustrator, and I had barely scratched the surface when it came to learning how to use the program. Almost everybody else that was doing the competition had been using Adobe Illustrator for years. I enjoyed drawing and putting my ideas on paper, but I had never tried to put my designs or ideas into a computer. I normally draw to have fun, be creative, and take a break from the world around me, but not to compete against other people. After considering it for a while, I came to the conclusion that this competition would be a good experience for me, because I would get to meet other artists and learn how to better use Adobe Illustrator.

The first thing I did after signing up for this competition was draw out what I wanted this pin to look like. My design looked good. I was really proud of this design, but I doubted whether I’d be able to put it onto a computer.

A few days later I tried to put this design onto one of the school computers that had Adobe Illustrator. Thankfully, it was easier than I thought it would be, but still difficult. After working on it for an hour or two, it was finished. I still preferred my drawing, but for a beginner this looked pretty good. Within the next few weeks I had to find time to work on making a poster board presentation for the pin and write out what I was going to say to the judges about my pin.

When the day of the competition rolled around I felt that my presentation wasn’t going to be good enough, and I worried about it all the way up until it was my turn to present in front of the judge. While I was giving my presentation the judge seemed to really like my pin design, which made me feel a lot better about my presentation. As soon as they got through all the presentations and took time to consider everyone's designs, they announced the winners. I ended up getting 2nd place! I wasn’t even expecting to get 3rd, so this was a big surprise for me.

This competition was a great learning experience for me, and it helped me develop more of a passion for graphic design. I’m so glad I signed up for the competition, even though it was something I’d never done before. I learned that I should try new things even if I think I won’t succeed.

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