My initial idea for the pin, I wanted to show how North Carolina is both the coast and the mountians but it quickly became apparent that the mountian was just distracting and looked like a blob. 

I removed the mountian and added a 50 to the beam of the light house for the 50th anniversery of SkillsUSA.

 

I started playing with how to incorperate the year. I liked the idea of cutting the numbers off, but placement was difficult. 

I decided to write out the word "Two Thousand." It filled the space better. I also removed the gradient from the light beam and chanced the "50" from black to white.

This is the final product that I plan to submit to be considered as the North Carolina pin for compeditors who go to SkillsUSA National Compitions. I messed aroung a little more with the size of numbers and text I'm really happy with how it turned out.