Have you ever wondered what it is like to have your own designs on billboards? Well, one of Penn High School’s own students, Nick Ewald, gives PNN more insight into two billboards that he designed.

Nick Ewald is a part of Penn’s class of 2018, and also a part of the Elkhart Career Center. Nick designed a billboard that can be seen in two locations; Capitol Avenue between Jefferson and McKinley, and on U.S. 19. These billboards are the product of an advertisement design contest at the Elkhart Career Center, in which the class cooperated with the Potawatomi Zoo. For the contest, 20 students submitted more than 22 billboard designs to the zoo, which later sent representatives to choose 3 designers’ entries. After

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exchanging ideas with the zoo’s representatives, “we had to revise [our project] and turn [it] in 2 weeks later”.

Nick had obviously put in a lot of time and hard work into designing the best billboard. However, he did not anticipate the end result. “I did not expect it to be that large” said Nick with a sense of pride, describing his impressions when he first saw his artwork printed on a billboard. He has big plans for his future as he states, “I am planning to go into graphic design as a major [in college]”. Having two billboards with Nick’s designs on them is a big accomplishment to add to his resume. This is a huge accomplishment for Nick as he says, “it solidifies my plans in the way that I know I can do something and it be good enough for other people, so it can be good enough for publication.”

 

Congratulations to one of Penn’s own, Nick Ewald! Drive by and take a look at one of the billboards Nick designed, and then head on over to the zoo!

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By Kevin McNulty

Kevin McNulty teaches English and Mass Media Studies at Penn High School. He advises the Penn News Network and manages the PNN Studio and news room. For more information, navigate your browser to www.massmediastudies.net.