Hype Magazine earns national acclaim through student creativity, collaboration

Hype Magazine, a production of the Central Washington University Publicity Center, has a history of success on the national stage.

Continuing its tradition of excellence, the student-led publication won four categories at the annual Association of College Unions International “Steal This Idea” competition earlier this year.

On September 26, the Hype team received an honorable mention at the University and College Designers Association (UCDA) Design Conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. CWU Publicity Center Communications Consultant Lexi Wicks said the award speaks to the creativity and passion of the students involved.

“For a campaign like this, it takes so many moving parts and students collaborating to make it a success,” she said. “We’re lucky to have a student team that’s really passionate about this work, and being able to give them the autonomy to put their own spin on what we’re producing gives us a super unique end product.”

Hype was recognized in the Integrated Campaign category, where only 103 honorable mentions were awarded out of 950 entries. The category examined Hype’s entire campaign around the spring 2024 issue of the magazine, taking into consideration the team’s work on TV banners, social media content, and other campus promotions, along with the design and writing work that appeared in the magazine.

Twelve of the 14 team members credited on the spring 2024 Hype campaign are students, exemplifying the Publicity Center’s commitment to putting student voices front and center. CWU Graphic Design junior Dulce Ochoa, who worked on several designs for the magazine, said her experience with the team has been a source of inspiration on her journey to a career in her field.

“I really love this job, and I’ve learned a lot about my field through it, too,” she said. “Working alongside other graphic designers has been inspiring, and the environment leads to some amazing creativity.”

Publicity Center Senior Graphic Designer Daniel Chiqui explained that fostering an atmosphere of creativity and experimentation has been critical in developing Hype’s unique, student-centered style.

“We try to let everyone play to their strengths, which really brings out the best in our whole staff,” he said. “Managing that balance of letting people’s unique styles shine while keeping them on the same page has been working very well for us.”

For the spring 2024 issue, the students decided to bring a new dimension to materials displayed around campus, animating them in a way that hadn’t been done previously. According to Wicks, that effort came about organically, with incredible results.

“They basically brought the Hype booklet to life and taught themselves animation to the point where it surpassed anything we could have imagined,” she said. “The students took it upon themselves to do that, and to go further in bringing our stories to life than we would have been able to before.”