WCU student magazine wins first place in publications contest
By Cam Adams
In the fall, it starts as small as a story pitch. In the spring? As tiny as a sketch on a piece of paper. Those little ideas turn into Imagine magazine, a publication produced by student writers and designers at 甜瓜视频app.
Each year鈥檚 edition is always colorful, unique and rich in content, but last year鈥檚 was award-winning.
Imagine magazine鈥檚 2023 issue placed first in the National Collegiate Honors Council Publications Contest鈥檚 faculty/administrator/student print magazine category.
鈥淚t was good to see it get an award. I enjoy working on that project every year, really just seeing what the students will come up with,鈥� said John Ballentine, WCU Communications and Marketing senior art director, who supervises the magazine鈥檚 student designers.
鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty cool seeing it get recognized, and I鈥檝e let the students who鈥檝e worked on that design know that. Hopefully, they鈥檙e excited about that, too.鈥�
The National Collegiate Honors Council, an association of undergraduate honors programs, colleges, deans and more, rebranded its competition to include magazines this year, as Imagine was one of just three honored.
Ballentine and Jeremy Jones, an associate professor of English Studies inside the College of Arts and Sciences, assist students every year in the creation of the magazine.
Jones works with first-year Brinson Honors College students with the writing portion of the magazine in the fall semester, and Ballentine and his group work on the design in the spring. However, both will admit they don鈥檛 do much of the magic behind the scenes.
2023 cover of Imagine magazine
The students do.
鈥淚t鈥檚 nice because we get to kind of exercise our own creativity a little more,鈥� said student designer Natalie Fletcher, a senior from Hendersonville studying graphic design. 鈥淚 think, especially in our classes, there鈥檚 a lot of constraints about what we鈥檙e allowed to do, and there鈥檚 some for these, but it is more freedom of expression and getting to try new things, so it鈥檚 good for experimentation and all kinds of stuff.鈥�
In Jones鈥� first-year creative writing class, students find an idea, pitch it, schedule interviews and photoshoots, write the stories and rewrite them until they鈥檙e ready for publication. In the spring, the class hands the project over to Ballentine and his crew.
The student designers read through the stories and generate design ideas through layouts, mood boards and sketches. Then, Ballentine鈥檚 staff has a series of critiques before they proofread and do pre-press work.
Every year, that process puts out a stellar magazine with the words inside the pages not being your average stories.
鈥�(The stories are) fairly short. They tend to be profiles about students or student groups, but the goal is always to have a story, to have something that鈥檚 more nuanced and kind of more layered,鈥� Jones said.
鈥淚鈥檇 like to think that the stories in there are doing that work, and that might be why they stood out.鈥�
And the art isn鈥檛 ordinary either. It was all award-winning after all.
鈥淚 think what makes them strong every year is just how it鈥檚 such diverse content,鈥� Ballentine said. 鈥淭here鈥檚 such a wide range of things being written about and strong photos, illustrations, I mean, it鈥檚 such a wide range of things that always make it a super interesting magazine."
