Five-year-old Sean Crawford (11)curiously walks through the airport. He isn’t looking at the creepy gargoyles staged throughout the airport. He’s not watching planes take off. Instead, he’s admiring the posters of airplanes on the walls surrounding him.

This admiration for the posters’ composition remains a core memory for Crawford, leading to his passion for contemporary and commercial graphic design. He has since put this passion into action by starting a career in graphic design.

Crawford’s time in high school has brought improvement and creativity into his designs.

Having started with experiments on Google Drawings, he now has doors open to him, leading to the professional world of design.

Art teacher Ali Martini believes Crawford’s potential to be unlimited.

“Kids like Sean are like unicorns,” Martini said. “They are rare.”

His future in design began during his freshman year in his Digital Art 1 class. Martini quickly saw potential in Crawford.

“I had him in Digital Art and then Sean, just from the beginning, had such a strong eye for design,” she said.

Martini introduced him to a former Monarch student who quickly became a mentor for him, Parker Albin. Albin has expanded his design journey beyond high school and now is a digital designer for the Denver Broncos.

“[Parker] has a really strong sense of typography as well as space,” Crawford said. “His spatial awareness with his work is super admirable, and I look up to it a lot.”

Crawford’s connections with professionals in design has helped his creativity and sense of composure evolve throughout his designs.

“I am most intrigued by sports media,” Crawford said. “But branding and marketing design is also a path that I’m very comfortable in.”

His journey into design has not only been influenced by teachers and alumni, but also by Crawford’s parents and older brother, Marcus Crawford, to whom Crawford turns for everything.

“He’s the most supportive person,” Crawford said. “He’s in everything I do. He’s there every step of the way, especially with design. Everything I make, he’s the first person I show it to.”

The bond Crawford and his older brother share is valuable to him. Impressing him has always been something Crawford strives for.

“I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to impress him, and it’s valuable to me whenever he’s happy for me because his support just means everything to me,” Crawford said.

Crawford’s endless amount of support and love from those around him has now led to opportunities for his design, especially during his junior year of high school.

On Jan. 14, Crawford won a Scholastic Gold Key award for his piece “No Bad Ideas.” The Gold Key is an honor award issued to high school students for their artistic and literary excellence. Monochromatic colors, diversity of shapes, and typography add to the piece’s overarching purpose, which is to inspire others to work through creative blocks and that no idea for art is bad.

“You can always make something valuable to yourself and to others that contributes to the art community,” Crawford said.

The piece is now being judged for a national award.

While Crawford’s creativity and passion show through his artwork, there’s more to it than what’s on the surface.

“I get into these phases where a lot of my work feels the same as the last thing I made,” Crawford said.

However, these setbacks only help Crawford to revise his work, which eventually gives him new opportunities

Crawford now has a design internship with Flatirons Football Club, a professional soccer team. He has helped transform the team’s social media design and quickly grew close with the

Director of Media for Flatirons Football Club, Arnav Pokhrel.

“The first thing I noticed when looking at Sean’s work is the versatility,” Pokhrel said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up in the professional leagues as a designer.”

The journey into design that Crawford has cultivated has not only increased his eye for creativity but also his confidence. Working for a professional-level soccer club has expanded his relationship with college-level journalists, like Arnav.

“Having him as a student connection at Syracuse is pretty valuable to me,” Crawford said.

As he continues to evolve and create work, Crawford’s design journey is rapidly improving, leading to many opportunities for a future in design.

“I’ve been loving design even more recently now that I’ve been improving technically,” Crawford said.