The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) has announced the winners for the 2015 Circle of Excellence awards and Rensselaer has received a bronze award in the design category for the new Rensselaer Viewbook.
According to CASE, the Circle of Excellence program is “advancement’s premier international awards program that recognizes the work of CASE members, acknowledging superior accomplishments that have lasting impact, demonstrate the highest level of professionalism, and deliver exceptional results. Winning programs epitomize the profession’s best practices, raise standards, and contribute to a growing body of knowledge about advancement.”
“With an overwhelming number of entries, several rounds of judging were necessary to select the top entries,” CASE reported. “As expected, the majority of entries were of high quality, visually engaging, and well designed.”
For the 2015 awards, CASE received more than 3,200 entries and 307 winners were named.
“We are honored to receive this award from CASE,” said David Brond, vice president for strategic communications and external relations (SCER). “It recognizes the great work of not only our team, but many individuals and departments across campus who contributed to this important project. We had amazing project collaboration by a team that included staff from SCER, Enrollment Management, and each of the schools.”
The Viewbook was honored in the “Multi-Page Publications” sub-category. Rensselaer was one of eight schools to receive an award, from a field of 113 entries. “A solid viewbook with a distinct flavor and good visual delineation of the schools within the institution,” said the judges’ report. “A mix of font types, photography, and graphics conveys a variety voices and provides numerous entry points for the reader. The perfect binding and quality paper stock adds to the appeal.”
“It is always helpful to see how our work stacks up against the work of our peers and also to have the work judged by colleagues in our field,” Brond said. “It is rewarding to read the comments from the judges that indicate what they saw in our piece is what we set out to accomplish when we conceived and designed it.”
The CASE Circle of Excellence award is just the latest received by Strategic Communications and External Relations. This award follows on the 2014 CASE Circle of Excellence bronze award for the Academic Sourcebook, and the 2013 Grand Gold award for the School of Architecture brochure.
“The Viewbook was another great piece we were able to work on with our colleagues in Enrollment Management,” said Diane Piester, director of creative services. “We had a hard-working and talented team who collaborated to create this piece. Of course, our ultimate goal is that the new Viewbook resonates with our audience as well as it has in this CASE competition. We look forward to the opportunity to continue to produce the highest level materials that represent Rensselaer.”
Brond also served as one of 47 host coordinators for the 2015 Circle of Excellence Awards. He and Piester, along with local advertising agency principals, reviewed submissions in the advertising category.
Rensselaer also was honored by CASE with a Circle of Excellence silver award for Best Uses of Social Media – Fundraising for RPi Day, and the Institute was named as a 2015 winner for overall fundraising performance and overall fundraising improvement.
