appointments 
The talk about town is Howard Dare’s work on making RMIT a graphic arts educational institution that will rub shoulders with the world’s best, but for the moment, the limelight has been stolen by former RMIT apprentice Sarah Jones who has won the 2003 International WorldSkills Finals Gold Medal. Jones, who is now part of Kudos graphics in Eltham, Victoria, was selected to represent Australia at what is considered to be the industy’s Olympic Games. The four day event tests graphic prepress professionals from 30 countries on their ability to complete a series of standard yet challenging tasks common in modern prepress environments.

Day One of competition required contestants to design a three-colour logo and label for a sports drink container; the brief for Day was to design a two spot colour logo and four-colour process menu cover for a restaurant and bar. Day Three comprised of designing a four-colour process poster for a Nokia mobile phone and redraw the Nokia logo; while the task for Day Four design a three spot colour package.

According to Jones, the competition was very challenging from the very start. She had not been happy with her work throughout the event and winning had been the farthest thing from her mind.

"During the days leading up to the competition we had 2 familiarisation days, totalling 8 hours. We were able to install any applications/font management systems that we required. I didn’t have much luck and many problems came up. After the second familiarisation day the technician finally found out that there was a clash with the font management systems installed and the operating system," says Jones.

"It was a huge relief to have finally finished, the other competitors were all very wonderful people and the competition was hard. When I won the Gold medal and the best in the nation I think I was in shock. It still hasn’t hit me that I am the best in the world."

Jones’ victory makes it two in a row for Australia after Marcus Kostalac won the same event in Seoul last year.