Hayden’s sure sign of success

Pakenham Secondary College student Hayden King with his winning design. 190047_01 Pictures: ROB CAREW

By Kyra Gillespie

For budding designer and high school student Hayden King, there’s a big sign that he’ll be successful in his future creative endeavours.

The Year 11 Pakenham Secondary College student emerged victorious in the Gembrook Community Centre’s design competition, where students were invited to submit an original design to feature on the new community centre sign.

Hayden’s digitally designed piece, featuring earthy greens and browns, took out the top spot and has since been printed and installed outside the centre on a three metre permanent sign.

“I am just so happy with how it turned out, it looks amazing,” Hayden said.

“It took me about a semester just to think of the design; because Gembrook is quite rural and in the bush I thought maybe having some wood planks as the background would be good.

“When it came to adding features, I added in the leaves because it fit in well with the location. I wanted text that seemed official and the polaroid-style photos to be like they were pinned on a board. I think it suits really well.”

This is the first major project undertaken by the Pakenham student.

“This is the first major thing I’ve done; I taught myself how to do graphic design and have been working up my skills by teaching myself how to use different applications.

“I was blown away by the generosity of the Gembrook Community Centre officials, I’m so thankful to them and my teacher for this opportunity.”

Fellow peers Phoebe Gerin and Briannah Sorah were runners up in the design competition.

Teacher Emily Schinzig, who is the Head of the Pakenham Secondary College Art Department, said she was proud of her students’ efforts.

“The Gembrook Community Centre committee felt their current sign was outdated and tired; they wanted a young, fresh look and feel to the sign – so they asked students from local schools to enter their competition. They preferred that students do not view the current design so that they had a completely fresh take on what was possible according to the brief,” Ms Schinzig said.

“They wanted to promote Gembrook’s uniqueness; they had the idea of inviting students to get fresh ideas, and to give students an opportunity to develop their own skills in designing and adding to their own resume for those wanting to pursue a career in design.”

Ms Schinzig said the project took a whole year because the students mostly worked on the designs outside of their class time.

“Four of our students submitted designs for the competition; three students worked in Art Club on their entries at lunch time, and one other in a photography class. Designs varied in art forms; two year nine students worked together on a water colour painting, one year seven student also used water colour paints, and Hayden created his design digitally.

“Hayden’s entry stood out as the design was refined, had a creative layout, was dynamic, had imagery that resembled Gembrook but also encompassed all that Gembrook Community Centre has to offer.”

The students met with three Gembrook Community Centre representatives, Les Whitehead, John Cascone, Mick Gallagher, who presented each of them with a prize.

“The Community Centre was very generous and awarded prizes for all participants who had given up their time to enter the competition.”

Hayden was excited about his $250 cheque, which he thinks he will put towards future design projects.

“The prize was so generous, I am so thankful to them. I’m not 100 per cent sure what I’ll do with it but I’m thinking of saving it.”