Kelsey Wade, an apprentice graphic designer from printDNA in regional South Australia, has added another accolade to her growing list after winning the gold medal in the graphic design technology section at a recent WorldSkills Australia tournament.
Wade also won the ‘Tjerk Dusseldorp Best in Nation’ award at the tournament as she was the competitor to score the highest marks across the board. In all 239 competitors competed across 55 different skill categories.
Wade, who last year took out the inaugural ProPrint Emerging 50 mentorship prize, will now join the Skillaroos team from varying skill categories and represent Australia at the 46th WorldSkills International Competition in Shanghai, China in October 2022.
“It has been such a whirlwind of an experience. From winning Gold at the WorldSkills State competition two years ago to now winning the National title is one of my proudest feats. And now with the opportunity to go further and compete on the international stage, well now that’s something else entirely,” Wade told Sprinter.
“I was actually with my Mum and partner watching my brothers play basketball whilst also watching the live ceremony on my phone. When my category was announced, they ran through the names quite quickly. All of a sudden, my name was called last as the Gold winner and my Mum screamed throughout the whole stadium and hugged me.
“In a surprising twist, my boss ended up ringing me about 20 minutes later to ask me if I’d stopped watching it, as we were driving home, to which he then told me, “You’ve won another award.” That was when I found out I had also been named the ‘Tjerk Dusseldorp ‘Best in Nation’ for having the highest awarded marks out of the whole competition.
“I have many people to thank, because my accomplishments are only as good as the mentoring and support that I receive: Brendan Hibbert, Russell Moverley and Indy Griffiths, my mentors over the last 18 months in training me for the competition, and of course my team at Print DNA, for continuously pushing my limits and refining me into the successful design creative I am today.”
Due to COVID, this year’s national WorldSkills competition was held via Zoom over two days in August 2021.
Wade competed in the Graphic Design Technology section against five other state competitors plus three international benchmark competitors.
On the first day of the competition she had to design a label for a jar and produce a box packaging design for a honey brand, for a Chinese market in six hours.
On day two competitors had to design an 8-page portfolio/booklet for a nature playspace company, for a corporate/investor market, also in six hours.
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