Digital Knight to honor talented graphic design students
The best and brightest North Fort Myers High School students in the world of design, gaming and production will get together Wednesday for the fifth-annual Digital Knight event in the school’s media center.
And, unlike in previous years, the finalists aren’t going to know they won until the ceremony beforehand.
The program starts at 6 p.m., and will kick off with a ceremony and the announcement of the winners, which was suggested by the students as a way to change things around and add a layer of suspense to the happening.
“We always announced winners during school. The complaint was the teacher never turned on the news or didn’t hear it play, rather, they learned second-hand from a friend, so it wasn’t a special moment,” said Jennifer Curls, graphic design and 3D animation teacher at the school.
Unlike previous years, when Curls and other teachers put on the event, the students are running the show this time around, organizing it, and putting their passion into it, Curls said.
There will be a red carpet and it will resemble the Oscars. The 30 students who placed in the top three will receive invites to inform them they placed. Of course, families, parents and friends are invited.
Also different are the judges, who had been from around the area. This time, most are from out of state.
“We have a judge from Georgia, another from New York, a couple live in Florida, but not in Fort Myers,” Curls said. “We sent the files off to them and they’ll have the weekend to critique them.”
Also, the judges will be more in their areas of expertise, an improvement over what it was in the beginning, when it was mainly teachers from other schools.
And the prizes also will reflect that. In the past everyone got basically the same prizes, but a photographer this year will get a camera, for example. There also will be a scholarship awarded, sponsored by the Rotary.
Curls said nearly 200 entries were submitted, and that the bar continues to be raised because the event has turned into a great marketing tool for the school.
“The quality of the work keeps getting better. Now that the kids know about Digital Knight, we have kids on the first day of school ask when it is,” Curls said. “The kids are thinking about it a year in advance and that the freshmen are polishing up their skills and try to win the top prize. It’s an event where the freshmen can win over the seniors.”
For the fifth straight year, Victory Layne Chevrolet will be the title sponsor, donating the prizes as it has in the past.