Sophomore Georgia Zlupko entered the Pennsylvania Scholastic Press Association (PSPA) Design Contest during the 2023-2024 school year for teacher Wanda Vanish’s Introduction to Publication class. Introduction to Publication is an elective students can take to learn about news writing, photography and design skills.
“I joined Intro to Publication because it seemed like something I could be interested in for the future, such as joining yearbook,” Zlupko said. “I was excited to do something else with design because that was my favorite aspect of the class.”
Vanish gave the assignment as extra credit and the task was to design a logo for a PSPA to use to be placed on different products available on the PSPA website.
“PSPA emailed all members about the opportunity, and I put it out there for the students as extra credit,” Vanish said. “Georgia took advantage of the opportunity. The summer passed and neither of us thought anything had come of it. Then, we both got an email from the judge and found out her design would be one of the options on the website.”
Sara Miller was a judge of the contest. The judges specifically looked for an accurate and professional representation of PSPA that would be visually appealing and balanced.
“The board liked the message of ‘reporting truth’ on Georgia’s design as well as the relevancy of using the smiley face surrounded by reporter’s tools,” Miller said.
This was the first time they have done a student design contest since Miller has been on the board.
“When PSPA launched the Spreadshop earlier this year, we wanted to be able to offer some additional designs in addition to the official PSPA-designed logos,” Miller said. “We are planning to have a student design contest each year so we can continue to add designs to the shop.”
Zlupko is currently on the Horseshoe Yearbook staff and received an honorable mention for the contest as well as her item is in the PSPA shop.
