Digital design students at the Lee County High Tech North center were recognized by the Southwest Florida chapter of the American Advertising Federation for excellence in creating advertisements.
The local chapter of the national advertising federation judges work from both students and professional agencies. Projects that are submitted don’t compete against one another, instead they win “ADDYs” if their work exhibits excellence in the field.
Kevin Hawk, digital design instructor at High Tech North, said five students participated in this year’s ADDY awards, submitting advertisements, brochures, photographs or other promotional materials. Overall, the design program has 17 students but not all of them were ready to submit their work, he said.
Students from High Tech North received 14 awards in the competition, including five gold ADDYs and eight silver ADDYs. Josh Noom, a design student, earned Best of Show for creating a shopping bag for In-Shape and fellow designer Sloan Kinnard earned the Judge’s Choice for a “Before 8, Morning Blend” logo.
Hawk said the school’s program is meant to prepare students for the workforce, and that winning an ADDY looks great on a resume.
“One of the most important things about this is that it verifies the kind of training they are getting is relevant to the real world,” he said. “The whole purpose of this program is to get students job in the fields and this helps them.”
This is the third year that High Tech North has submitted student work to the American Advertising Federation. In the past, digital design students entered the SkillsUSA competition but Hawk said the AAF is far more recognized in the industry.
Culinary art and computer-aided design students still compete in SkillsUSA. William Beal, a high school student in CAD, and Justin Puterbaugh in Culinary Arts, competed in the regional SkillsUSA competition last month at the Sarasota County Technical Institute. (See photo on page 7A)
Both students came home with medals — Beal won a silver medal in Technical Drafting and Puterbaugh won a bronze medal in Commercial Baking.
The AAF also awarded High Tech North the School Excellence in Education Award and handed them a large crystal trophy.
Students who won Gold ADDYs were Josh Noom, for a design logo, Chris Shepard for a poster entitled “Escape from America” and Paige Budde for the photograph “Let’s Play.”
Winners of Silver ADDYs included Rhonda Kemerer for the poster “Miley and Me,” Chris Shepard for the poster “Legend of Doomador,” Josh Noom for the poster “Waterfest,” Josh Noom for an Edison Mall logo, Paige Budde for the photographs “Last Fall” and “Underground Live,” and Sloan Kinnard for the photographs “Winter’s Grey” and “Blakley Bridge.”