Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Eastfield College Entry Title: Et Cetera website Entry Credit: Et Cetera staff Judge Comment: Slick, appealing website! Clean, stylish layout. Well organized structure and easily apparent hierarchy with dominant elements standing out clearly. Strong use of photography and well thought out meaningful graphics to capture interest and illustrate concepts. Moderately slow moving single line news ticker at the top grabs attention, but not distracting or having to compete with other moving elements. Print editions well presented with Issuu and archives showing all the cover thumbnails shows how their print production value carries over into their website design for a cohesive cross-media approach. The one area needing improvement is the about us (top image broken, the video is nice though) and staff pages (still has a template placeholder.)
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: A&M-Kingsville Entry Title: Overall Design - Web Entry Credit: The South Texan Staff Judge Comment: Clean layout. Homepage offers a clear roadmap to the site, with featured items spotlighted and more heavily weighted with a top down hierarchy. (The newsletter signup invitation is a nice touch, but would like it to just happen on the first visit though, not when I return to the homepage.) As a fellow journalist, was drawn in to the "behind the scenes" at the newspaper video. I like that the featured article listings include enough of a content preview to help the viewer decide if they want to click on it. Especially helpful when the headline and image alone don't paint enough of the picture. Would like to see that carry over to the inside pages listings. Meta repeats the date and focuses on the category and an invitation for comments before the viewer has seen the article. Would prefer an excerpt or synopsis of the item. Kudos to the "How to Adult" series, bridging the gap between college student and the world of "adulting". Just need to fix the feed to the column's own page as it comes up empty.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Brookhaven College Entry Title: Brookhaven Courier Website Entry Credit: Brookhaven Courier Staff Judge Comment: Well balanced homepage with slider and listing of trending stories by category to orient the viewer and help them navigate the site. Pleasing layout with clear hierarchy. Inside pages tend to be the same, but the layout is clean and inviting. Did find a technical issue when trying to view the main block on the print editions "The content is blocked, please contact site owner."
Place Name: Honorable Mention Contestant Name: Houston-Clear Lake Entry Title: UHCL The Signal Entry Credit: The Signal Staff Judge Comment: Clean layout, good mix of news. Each section has a featured header which is nice.
Competition Comment: Competition was fierce in this category! It is clear that all of these schools take their newspapers, including these websites as a part of the overall package, seriously. The race was close. Congratulations to Eastfield College for pulling ahead of the pack and taking the first place award with their slick layout, meaningful feature story and editorial illustrations and clear home page hierarchy. All these schools should be proud of the work your student journalists are turning out.
