This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, April 26.
We at Garcia Media take great pride in the accomplishments of the ACBJ newspapers. Those local business weeklies keep showing what can be done when good content meets great, elegant and functional packaging.
Joh Wile, VP for Content & Design at ACBJ, with whom we at Garcia Media worked during the so called Pinstripe Project, shared the good news with us this week:ACBJ had another great showing at the annual Society for News Design competition this weekend.
“We won a silver medal, our staff portfolio won for the first time ever and Small Business, Big Mission won a combo digital/print award, along with a slew of other awards,” Jon wrote me.
Most importantly, the ACBJ newspapers were awarded the only Judges’ Special Recognition at the competition. This went to our entire body of work but was anchored by a national project called Small Business, Big Mission. Each paper had to profile at least four business owners at the outset of covid and profile the challenges, pivots and craziness of owning a small business. In total, ACBJ profiled 240 business owners across the country. Part 2 of this project ran a few months later and looked at the disproportionate lending to minority-owned businesses — especially Black-owned business — by the SBA.
Here is what the judges said about the JSR:
Judges’ Special Recognition for a body of work that shows commitment to an overall design philosophy, while encouraging originality and adaptability. American City Business Journals has created an elegant but flexible design system to serve a range of stories and voices across many cities, through many publications. The judges feel that this design system was tested and strengthened by the “American Dreams Disrupted” series. We also applaud the collaboration it takes to do this type of work from an economically-efficient design studio, where it would be easy to stifle a sense of place or local tone. With each of their entries representing an individual city, the judges never felt that the identity of the location was missing. ACBJ has produced an impressively consistent yet unique body of work that utilizes great photography, illustration and beautifully simple infographics that fit well within a robust and graceful architecture of grids and typography.
Jon added: “I am particularly proud of what the judges saw in our body of work across our entries — they encapsulated what we tried to do with design and storytelling when we started this journey nine years ago with Pinstripe. It’s very validating to receive this recognition.”
Our involvement with Pinstrip project
Working closely with then Garcia Media art director, Reed Reibstein, we embarked into a journey to change 40 titles under the ACBJ umbrella, all published in different cities of the US, but with one common goal: to provide local business coverage distinguished by its journalistic excellence.
Project leader was Emory Thomas Vice President-Local Markets , who reminisced about our project together this week upon learning of the many awards SND gave his newspapers, congratulating those who made this achievement possible:
The best blueprint in the world doesn’t guarantee execution, and yet here we are with globally recognized world-class execution. The way you’ve carried forward the vision, the standards, the talent acquisition, the symphony conduction, and more, have been superb.
Pinstripe – which ultimately spanned so many different facets of ACBJ, from culture to quality to operations and more — began with the assertion that design is essential and integral to the product…that ACBJ must lift and unify its storytelling to remain relevant in today’s multiplatform media world…that we must offer our editors a magic blend of formula and freedom in order to harness the best they can offer and to engage local audiences to the greatest degree possible.
Take a look at the winning pages:
- SBBM1 -> This is the first part of Small Business, Big Mission
- SBBM2 -> This is the second installment of Small Business, Big Mission
- Milwaukee -> 1-4 is a cover story on the pandemic; PPP is a spread from a different issue about PPP lending
- Denver -> Cool space page
- SanFran-SilverMedal -> This cover won a silver medal
- SF-WellsFargo -> Beautiful cover story about Wells Fargo challenges during PP
About the Pinstripe Project
The design of the Silicon Valley Business Journal, from prototype to reality
Silicon Valley Business Journal: Creating the ultimate multi-platform operation
Lessons learned from Silicon Valley, and a look at some details of SVBJ
Our mobile storytelling workshops now available remotely
Professors: get your review version of The Story on time for fall classes
As an academic, I know the importance of having the right tools to advance our students, especially on the important subject of mobile storytelling. Please drop me an email if you would like to sample The Story in its digital edition: mario@garciamedia.com
Start writing or type / to choose a block
The full trilogy of The Story now available–3 books to guide you through a mobile first strategy. Whether you’re a reporter, editor, designer, publisher, corporate communicator, The Story is for you! https://amazon
TheMarioBlog post # 3308