Point staffers take top prizes in contest

Ad by Ruslana Lambert named best in show

By M. Patricia Titus
Staff Reporter

MDDC member newspapers compete each year for top awards in divisions based on size, as well as various categories for individual types of advertising and editorial content. And winners in each division then vie for top prizes — small local weekly newspapers against major industry players such as Baltimore’s The Sun and the Washington Post.

Competing in Category C for non-daily newspapers with circulation of 15,000 or greater, the Coastal Point came home with four division-level awards.

Graphic artist Bob Bertram took third place in the division for local black-and-white retail ads of less than a half-page, for his ad for Dollar Buys: “Face Lift Only a Dollar!”

Bertram, Point Art Director Shaun Lambert and other staffers, in a joint effort, brought home second place in the division for print newspaper promotion — the Coastal Point’s 2006 calendar, which featured the most memorable of the Point’s photography throughout the previous year and was offered for sale at the Point office in late 2005 and early 2006.

Point photographer Ruslana “Rosi” Lambert topped the division with a first-place finish for local color ads smaller than a half-page for retail businesses, with iLand Art Gallery’s “I’d Like to be … Under the Sea” promotion. The ad was also named Best of Category overall, among newspapers of all sizes and publication schedules.

Ruslana Lambert won another first place in the division for local color ads larger than a half page, for retail businesses, with Kool Bean coffee shop’s “It’s a Whole New Bean” ad.

The Best of Category winners, across all the divisions, were then pitted against each other for five top spots overall. Those five “best of the best” advertisements were on display during the April 27 MDDC event in Annapolis, and attendees were granted the right to cast their vote for their choice among them as Best in Show — the top prize among the advertising awards.

And there, Ruslana Lambert again brought home the prize for the Coastal Point — this time the top prize — with her “I’d Like to be … Under the Sea” ad for iLand Art named as Best in Show.

“I’m really excited about it, about all the awards I won,” Ruslana Lambert said. “As my first real awards, I’m very proud of myself. Being evaluated as ‘Best of Show’ makes me more ambitious to keep creating interesting ads, along with photographs. Also, I’m very happy for the Coastal Point. As a new paper, winning these awards definitely is going to make it known and more prestigious.”

“I’m also very grateful to our art director for showing me the bases of building ads and letting me work on them without limiting my ideas,” the Bulgarian native added, in a nod to her husband, Shaun.

For his part, Shaun Lambert said, “Working with Ruslana and Bob has truly been a pleasure and an honor. They both are tremendously talented people, and I could not be more proud of the composition staff. They both deserve acknowledgement for their creativity, hard work and the long hours they put in at the Coastal Point.”

Point Editor Darin McCann was ecstatic about the awards received by the two-year-old newspaper and its staff.

“I couldn’t be any happier for Rosi, and I’m extremely proud of our entire production team,” McCann said. “It’s great to see them recognized for all their talent and hard work.

Point Publisher Susan Lyons said, “The whole staff is very excited about the awards and extremely proud of Rosi, especially, for taking home Best of Show. To win at this level in our first year of eligibility, with the competition we faced, just goes to show how incredibly talented our staff is.”

With the win, The Point was awarded possession of the Best in Show trophy for the coming year, until the 2007 MDDC contest again pits the work of the Point’s staff against the region’s top newspaper designers and editorial staff.