Students from the School of Journalism and Mass Communications garnered 10 awards at the AEJMC internationally competitive Festival of Visual & Interactive Media or “VIM Fest” awards on March 13, 2025.
The winners in the Single Image Photojournalism category and the photo journalism essay category were awarded to students who participated in the 2024 Talmadge Moore LeGrand Photojournalism Workshop with visual communications instructor Renée Ittner-McManus. The students spent 16 hours last spring at the Carolina Cup in Camden, producing a body of work from before dawn to after dusk at the steeplechase racing event.
"The caliber of photos our students produce from hands-on photojournalistic experiences like the Carolina Cup and the South Carolina State Fair are a testimony to how important these experiences are to the success of our program," said Ittner-McManus. "It's a joy to see others recognize the quality of our students' work here at SJMC."
Visual communications instructor Jason Porter had ten students honored for their work at VIM Fest.
Elissa Myers won a Gold award in the Interactive and Motion Design category for her Dumbell app prototype. Judges liked the "clean design and the use of large high-quality photographs that matched the overall color scheme to draw attention to key parts of the interface and help a user feel welcome and knowing how to move forward in the app."
“I’m very proud of time and effort our students put into their projects. Their hard work definitely paid off with all the awards they took home tonight,” Porter said.
Nick Lott won a Gold award in the General Design category for his Gamecocks Baseball social media graphic. The graphic was also awarded a Gold ADDY from the American Advertising Federation of the Midland's.
Four projects created by Porter's students were honored in the video animation category, and Keith Greenwood, AEJMC's visual communications director, was impressed.
"Whoever had the idea to explore bizarre laws through animation is doing awesome work," Greenwood said of the video animations created by Porter's students.
The AEJMC Festival of Visual & Interactive Media was created by the Visual Communication division, in partnership with a number of other AEJMC divisions, as an opportunity to have creative student work vetted in a blind-juried, peer-reviewed international competition.