I want to congratulate all those who worked so hard on Soul of Athens. It looks like all that hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed.

NPPA Best of Photography 2008: 1st Place, Best Multimedia Package

Judges quotes:

In addition to compelling videos, Soul of Athens used interactive graphics and user interactivity (using a Flickr group) to create the strongest multimedia Web site in this category. Every aspect was very well done. We especially appreciated the use of interactive graphics to visually explain the population of Athens and the Ohio University Eco House. These graphics harnessed the power of the web to add an additional layer to the storytelling.

We awarded honorable mentions to the University of North Carolina photography workshop project “On the Line” and Media Storm’s “Black Market.” We felt the timeline in “On the Line” brought together the stories being told through video on the site. “Black Market” provided extended video commentary which enhanced the video presentation of the main story. We also liked the inclusion of comments and the transcript.

Pictures of the Year International (POYi): 2nd Place, Best Use of Multimedia (Small)

We took second to MediaStorm, who also helped us out with Soul of Athens and where Bob Sacha and Chad Stevens went to work after their work on the project. Double congrats to them!

These are some big wins, and I can’t wait to see how the VisCom school at Ohio University does next year. There is some phenomenal talent there this year, and I can only hope to work with some of them in the future.