From the Nominator

Kenyon College celebrated its bicentennial in 2024. To mark this milestone, the Office of Communications designed the year’s three magazines as a triptych: “Bicentennial and Beyond,” the Spring 2024 issue, featured a before-and-after linocut of Old Kenyon by Ana Inciardi ’19, archival photography, and a retrospective of the legacy of Kenyon’s winningest coach, Jim Steen, “200 Things to Love About Kenyon,” the Summer 2024 issue, conceived as a love letter and a gift to alumni, celebrated the unique people, places, and traditions that make Kenyon so special, and “Beyond the Bicentennial,” the Winter 2025 issue (produced entirely in the 2024 calendar year and mailed in December 2024) featured a cover design depicting the campus’s newest buildings and celebrated a record-breaking fundraising campaign. The Kenyon Alumni Magazine’s mission is to connect all Kenyon alumni to a singular place and an authentically diverse community, one that continues to feed their mind and spirit. We seek to enlighten and entertain readers with well-crafted stories that embrace humanity and humor, highlight points of connection, and delight the senses. From surveys, we know that 63% to 65% of readers consider the alumni magazine their best source of information about Kenyon, and 67% agree or strongly agree that the magazine strengthens their personal connection to the institution. With this in mind, the communications team aimed to reinforce bicentennial messaging throughout the year while producing high quality issues packed with stories that resonate with our readership.

From the Judges

We were in awe of Kenyon’s magazines, created as pre- and post-bicentennial love letters, and appreciated greatly the incredible strategy and volume of work it must’ve took to do something so vast, so pleasing, so specific, and so magical. The strategy for these bookend publications was admired and appreciated, the stories told were smart, engaging, and fun, and we appreciated the photography, cartoons, illustrations, and the fact that the companion “200 Things” website was strong as well.