I don’t think I’ve ever won an award. An award that holds some weight at least. C’mon, that perfect attendance award in first grade doesn’t exactly do wonders for my resume.
But holy hell, my waiting has finally paid off, my lack of award-winning is deceased, and I’m set with awards until my future Pulitzer 10+ years down the road.
That Girl! is the first place winner in the 2008 AEJMC Student Magazine Contest for team Start-Up Magazine Project.
In 6 months, a 15-person team of undergraduates developed a prototype that competed with 21 other entries in a nationwide competition against undergrad and graduate universities. And we won. And we beat graduate students from Northwestern University’s Medill journalism school, what I consider one of the top graduate schools for journalism.
I am utterly in shock.
This is what Judge Nick Fauchald, senior associate food editor at Food & Wine, had to say about what set That Girl! apart from the other competition.
From the business plan to the design and editorial content, this magazine successfully identifies and caters to a very specific, very difficult audience: 7- to 12-year-old girls. The students displayed an astonishing handle on their projected readership, and it showed through especially on the playful, actionable design; I especially liked the “Just for You” page of cut-and-save content. The articles are perfectly geared to That Girl!’s young readers, and the advertisements are appropriate and easily distinguishable from editorial. Promotion strategies were innovate, especially the viral marketing and online opportunities.
FYI, he called us astonishing.
Even though it’s not exactly “my” award, I’m claiming 1/4 for myself: splitting 1/4 with the best designer for 7-12-year-old girls Holly Gibbs, another 1/4 with our young girls expert and editor-in-chief Nicole Orr, and the final 1/4 to the rest of our class and our team, the best copy editors we’ve got and the ones who sacrificed an all-day Saturday to make sure the photo shoot ran smoothly.
But all that aside, we wouldn’t have won without our detail-obsessed adviser. At the time we may have hated those do-overs, but it really makes it worth it now. Betty Cortina pushed us to do our best, better than our best. Betty Cortina made us into the magazine staff we are.
You might not be able to look at the actual magazine(some sample pages available at Holly Gibbs web site, but you can get an interactive experience of That Girl. (I still totally get chills when I see our video.)
Next stop, New York City and cover of Forbes 500.
Holy shit we won!!!!