A.W. Beattie, Northgate student wins state design competition

Congratulations to Northgate junior Andy Crow who recently won the SkillsUSA Pennsylvania Pin Design competition.

Students from across the state enter the competition every year, and A.W. Beattie Career Center Advertising Design students have won the competition in four consecutive years. Deer Lakes' Diana Navarette won in 2019, Northgate's Mia Recker won in 2020, and North Allegheny’s Alexis Robinson won in 2021.

"It's a really special accomplishment to have our students consistently do well in this competition," Advertising Design instructor Mrs. Heather Brown said. "You have to be really dedicated to compete and do well in SkillsUSA, and every year in this competition our students try new things with their designs and push themselves to do the best they can. It shows they are truly learning foundational design skills and that they understand how to pull together a multitude of elements appropriately to put together interesting and engaging graphic designs."

Each of A.W. Beattie's Pin Design state champions has focused on a different theme in the competition.

Diana highlighted Betsy Ross' American flag with Pennsylvania as a backdrop, and Mia focused on Pennsylvania's abundance of covered bridges.  Alexis took an outside-of-the-box approach and incorporated pop culture, comics and SkillsUSA's theme of empowerment. 

Andy used the outline of the state of Pennsylvania with three gears to symbolize technical education. He also utilized classic SkillsUSA themes like a torch to dot the “i.” Lastly, he used a shade of burgundy around the gears as a nod to A.W. Beattie’s school colors.

“There are so many students from so many schools that submit pin designs, so it definitely feels really good when I know some of my classmates had really great designs,” Andy said. “Honestly, I was surprised. I thought some of my classmates has better designs. We have a lot of skilled graphic designers.”

Andy’s pin will be given to every student who qualifies for state competition. The Pennsylvania delegate who attends nationals will trade Andy’s pin with other states.

Andy also will compete in the state Digital Cinema competition, which his older brother Riley won in 2020. Riley now attends Point Park University where he is continuing his education in the digital cinema field. Andy placed third in the competition as a sophomore.

“I’m looking forward to it a lot to try to improve,” Andy said.

While it is nice to win competitions, Mrs. Brown said the main focus is on getting better each day.

“Students like Andy have a lot talent and ability, and I know he’ll do well again in Digital Cinema,” Mrs. Brown said. “We’d like to come back with gold but our focus is really to go into it very humble and striving to be the best we can. It’s more important to focus on personal improvement than it is to come back with an award.”