Yoobee students excel at WorldSkills Competition

Yoobee graphic design students from three corners of New Zealand – Wellington, Auckland and Christchurch competed in the WorldSkills New Zealand national competition in October and the winner is now beginning a rigorous training schedule.

WorldSkills is the largest vocational skills competition in the world, with 79 member countries and over 50 skill categories. It gives young people a chance to pursue excellence through vocational skills in their field of industry.

Taking place in New Zealand over the last 30 years the WorldSkills New Zealand competition has expanded the skill categories to include Graphic Design. Yoobee is a proud supporter of the competition and it’s the third time that Graphic Design has run in the prestigious bi-annual tournament. Last year Yoobee graduate Sarah Browning took home a Medallion of Excellence in the world championships that were held in Abu Dhabi.

This year at the nationals, the competitors had two briefs covering editorial and packaging to design, with one day allocated to each brief. Each brief was devised into two to three time pressured tasks.

Sherein Abdel-Al, a tutor at Yoobee School of Design/Graphic Design and Skill Manager for WorldSkills has been coordinating the competition within New Zealand for the past few years.

Sherein says, “I’m really proud to be involved with WorldSkills and our Yoobee students, and they certainly performed well under the high pressure deadlines at the nationals. It is unlike anything they would have done before in terms of timeframes. They all should be proud of themselves.”

The final results in the national competition were all Yoobee students:

1st place – Justin Mespel (Christchurch), 2nd place – Ashlea Collett (Auckland), 3rd place – Marcus Seumanu (Wellington).

Since the national competition marks have been reviewed, interviews undertaken and a follow-up test were given to determine who would take the spot for the next phase of training. Keenly sought after as the student will represent New Zealand in the WorldSkills World Championships in Kazan, Russia in August 2019.

The winner is Justin Mespel from Yoobee Christchurch, who has made it through to the training phase, which will be supervised by Sherein, who says, “Justin has about 600 hours training ahead of him, and he has shown he is ready to give all he has. We have really appreciated the support from Yoobee Christchurch staff, who have helped us through this busy time”.

Follow Justin’s journey on Facebook: WorldSkills NZ Design.