Graduate wins first place in national graphic design championship

By Dillon Valencia

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    ROCKFORD, Illinois (WREX) — Out of 50 different finalists from across the U.S, Stateline native, Kristina Mohr, landed the number one spot in the Adobe Certified Professionals U.S National Graphic Design Competition. A prestigious program lead by Certiport, highlighting talented Graphic Designers in high schools across the U.S..

“I was really surprised,” said Kristina.

Before the national competition even became top of mind, Kristina’s instructors at Hononegah Community High School encouraged her to submit her poster to see if she could become a finalist at a competition in Florida.

“I was like checking my emails a lot,” said Kristina.

“When I saw it, I had to read it twice because I wasn’t sure if it was real.”

“The moment we heard she was going was a surprise because we didn’t know she had submitted anything,” said Erika Mohr, Kristina’s Mother.

That poster, landing her in the top 50 spot, took over nine hours to complete with the theme being agriculture for a local non-profit.

“I like how the colors go together,” said Kristina.

“I just thought like tomatoes, they can be red and orange, and their company colors were like red, orange, blue, and green. So I thought they’d just be a good fit for it.”

Mid June 2024, she went to Florida with the help of funding from her school and the competition.

For this competition, having to submit a new poster, centered around another non profit, ‘Choose Kindness’. During the competition, the moments leading up to the grand reveal were nerve wracking.

“By the time they got to number two spot, we thought this was this was fun, this was a great experience,” said Erika.

“As soon as her design popped up, it was it was really emotional.”

At only 17 years old, Kristina, representing the State of Illinois, became recognized for her graphic design skills in a wide variety of Adobe products.

“I don’t think she expected it at all,” said Kristina.

“That was great to see her get to experience that and be recognized for the commitment and for the hard work that she does because she really puts forth a lot of effort and and is very humble and quiet about it.”

At the National Championship, Kristina won First Place, winning $3,000 in cash, gold metal, a trophy, winner’s certificate, plus an all expense paid trip to Anaheim, California for the Global championship in July of 2024.

Kristina plans on studying Animation at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater Fall of 2024.

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