Disrupt Mag beat off the competition to win London Met Accelerator's coveted Best Brand/Most Commercial Potential Award, with cash and mentoring prizes.
The London Met Magazine Awards took place on Wednesday and showcased the many achievements, talents and aspirations of our Journalism BA students. Third-year students competed in several difficult categories including Best Website, Best Cover and Best Live Event Feature and, for the first time, this year the coveted award of Best Brand/Most Commercial Potential was also up for grabs, thanks to our business incubator Accelerator.
The print and digital submissions, which students have been working on since October, included Alt London, an alternative arts magazine, Sprouts, a parenting magazine with articles for both kids and adults, Brassic, catering to skint students, Stu, a student food bible, and Disrupt, which has been described as "Fearless journalism covering popular culture, news and current affairs".
Five esteemed judges presided at the fifth annual event, including shining stars in journalism from Hello Magazine, Buzzfeed, The Guardian and Camden New Journal. Accelerator’s prize, which included mentoring and cash, should help the winning magazine make a splash in the marketplace.
The Disrupt team, which had "high-quality layout and graphics" and "thought-provoking" articles, won the coveted Accelerator award, which also provides an opportunity to interview for a place on Accelerator's prestigious (and intensive) summer Launchpad programme.
"They've got a good sense of who their (target) readership is – young socially-engaged people – and this comes across in the content and layout," said Simon Boot, Student and Graduate Enterprise Manager at Accelerator. "There is a lot of competition in this space but this shows that there is a market for this product."
Disrupt editorial team members Kartel Brown, Emma Hati, Felicia Tombofa and Terje Vaher were on hand to receive the award. "All the students from all the mags worked incredibly hard to reach this point. This just shows that talent combined with teamwork and a bit of sweat and tears can reap real results," Module Leader Wendy Sloane commented.
