UtahMed
From the Nominator
"UtahMed is a newly designed magazine for the University of Utah's School of Medicine. The prior publication, Illuminations, was published for nearly two decades prior. It was a good publication and well regarded by the alumni board, but tended to be more of a newsletter and inwardly focused. In conducting this redesign, two priorities served as our North Star:
- To create a publication that befits a rapidly ascending school and an expanding comprehensive academic medical center.
- To retain the local flavor that is so important to the people of Utah.
For this we made a few big moves:
- Changed the name from Illuminations to UtahMed to leverage name recognition. (At the same time, the university flagship magazine also renamed from Continuum to University of Utah Magazine, so we were in line.)
- Dropped from two publications a year to one to focus our budget on quality.
- Increased the page count and size so that the issue would stand out on the coffee table.
We published the first issue in February 2020, just a few weeks before COVID-19 swept across the country. While the launch issue was met with wide acclaim, it also was eclipsed by the greatest public health emergency of our lifetime. Nevertheless, we now had a platform with which we could tell our COVID story in the second year. And we set immediately to work."
From the Judges
It looks and feels like a sharp, sophisticated, and upscale magazine--a massive turnaround from what came before, but impressive in its own right. UtahMed's transformed from essentially a newsletter to a high-end magazine that delivers a modern design with engrossing teasers, photography, illustrations, and infographics. It was also full of creativity, from its varied forms of storytelling to the clever use of the back cover.