Press Gazette’s Magazine Design and Journalism Awards took place on Monday night at the London Marriott Grosvenor Square, hosted by TV presenter and sports journalist Clare Balding.
6.50pm: The drinks reception is well underway in the lounge of the London Marriott. Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford will open the awards in about 15 minutes, then it’s dinner, design awards, dessert, journalism awards, and then party. Hopefully we’ll have all the winners on here by about 10ish.
7.30pm: Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford said the judges were impressed with the standard of this year’s entries, which span B2B, consumer and customer publishing.
7.40pm: Dinner is served. Starter is an oriental platter – prawn wrapped in filo, chicken satay, vegetable dumplings and sushi. Then for main we have oriental fish cakes, rack of lamb and mixed vegetables. Or mushroom ravioli for the non-meat-eaters. Expect awards action at about 8.30pm.
8.30pm: Clare Balding takes to the stage. “A good magazine is my idea of pornography. Lying in bed, flicking through those glossy features. It’s a nice change from sport.”
8.40pm: We’re starting with the design categories. Here’s the first batch of winners…
Young Designer of the Year
Dominic Bell, Wallpaper
The judges said: “Wallpaper* is the one really strong and convincing piece of editorial design presented here. While some entries feature young designers thrown in at the deep end, the Wallpaper* entry demonstrates that Dominic can play a part in developing the magazine while learning the details of editorial design as part of a strong team.”
Best Designed Features Spread
Grant Bowden, Ritz (who’s in Texas tonight)
“An elegant and disarmingly simple design, but one that has clearly been very carefully thought through. The use of the Chanel logo is a conceit that never overpowers but drives the feature, framing, linking and underlining photographic elements as it goes.”
Best New Design/Redesign
Marissa Bourke, Elle
“Elle’s 2008 redesign brought it bang up to date with a design which is clear, readable, colourful and above-all stylish. It successfully helped reposition the title firmly back in its heartland in the world of fashion.”
Best Use of Typography
Grant Bowden, Ritz (his second award of the night – and he’s still in Texas)
“Ritz uses unusual typefaces to ensure that it looks like no other magazine. The fonts used show a lightness of touch which enable this magazine’s strong images to really shine.”
Best Use of Illustration
Tan Parmar, Contact
“This just jumps off the page and begs to be read. The text becomes the illustration walking hand in glove with the content. It would not surprise me to hear the page had regularly been torn out and pinned up.”
Best Use of Photography
Dan Delaney, Onelife
“The judges said this set of photographs hint at the nature of the editorial while compelling the reader to investigate the text in more detail.”
Best Designed Front Cover
Marissa Bourke, Elle (her second award tonight)
“Strong and simple in colour and structure, I liked the tension between the formality of the serif logo and the lipstick scrawl over it. It wouldn’t sell on the newsstand, but subscribers as staunch supporters of the Elle brand would identify with Sienna with bedhead hair and enjoy its whole irreverence. Both Elle and Esquire have developed a two-track front cover process whereby they publish two covers, one for the newsstand and one for subscribers. This allows the creation of less busy, more conceptual covers and Elle have made the most of this with a series of covers of which this must be one of the best. Two-colour, clean, iconic, it harks back to a simpler time when magazine covers could be this clean.”
8.45pm: Time for dessert and coffee. Back with more winners shortly…
9.25pm: We are back. We have been fed. This is good. More winners…
Reviewer of the year
Andrew Billen, The London Magazine
“Billen’s output is inexhaustable and evergreen; he turns in precise, fresh and zesty copy with uncanny frequency.”
Digital Journalist of the Year
Paul Grant, Accountancy Age (who can’t make it because his wife is in hospital giving birth – a fair excuse)
“A lively and visually stimulating site appropriate for its users and streets ahead of the other competitors. Grant’s work is accessible and well judged for his audience but perhaps he could be more experimental and provide pieces wholly right for a website rather than concentrate on an e-magazine. He should also lower or kill the music in the mix on his interviews.”
Business Reporter of the Year
Stuart MacDonald, Building
“He may be writing for a specialist business magazine – but his features wouldn’t look out of place in a Sunday supplement. He’s found some great stories within his sector and he tells them in a lively and engaging way.”
Exclusive of the year
Jonathan Green, Live (who’s in America getting married)
“A revelatory feature that would give the reader pause for thought. The Dirty Secret of Your NHS was particularly shocking, linking as it did our familiar world of the NHS with the pitiable state of Accra’s street children. It shows Green’s painstaking research and his dogged determination and belief that a story must be followed to its bitter end.”
Feature Writer of the Year
Ariel Leve, The Sunday Times Magazine
“This writer displays an astonishing breadth, drawing the reader in to their chosen subject matter with the killer combination of in depth research and a consummate skill of painting an intense picture with their words. They have the luxury of space for their articles to breathe, but they don’t waste an inch of it. The story of Tyler and Renee was immensely memorable – it had the tremendous power of human truth about it. If I see Ariel Leve’s name on a piece, I know it will be challenging, unpredictable, and first rate.”
Interviewer of the Year
Lesley White, The Sunday Times Magazine
“The three interviews, with Tony Blair, Ralph Lauren and David Bailey, show the range of White’s accomplishment: how, given her subject, she can adapt her interviewing technique to suit her target. The final pieces are also individual, ranging in tone and overall effect. The reader is exposed to a captivating and illuminating slice of the interviewee’s life while being aware of the strong voice of the interviewer. Honourable mention should go to Jeff Maysh: his encounter with Pete Docherty is something of a scoop and his interviews with Dustin Diamond and The Gladiators is pitched perfectly to his Loaded audience. Lesley White is an experienced interviewer who is always observant and fair. I read her knowing I will end with a deeper understanding of the subject. No tricks, just journalism.”
Columnist of the Year
Michael Hodges, Time Out
“Michael Hodges’ writing is funny, insightful and poignant and writes about urban life with a candidness and intimacy which brings the reader immediately into his confidence.”
News Reporter of the Year
Sally Gainsbury, Health Service Journal
“In Sally Gainsbury, the HSJ have found themselves a gem. Her style is firm, factual and above all dedicated to the one thing that news reporting relies on most; on the record quotes. Her exclusive story that the NHS, far from being cash strapped, was actually sitting on a £1.8bn credit balance was ruthless in its attention to detail. Her revelation that GP practise covering Buckingham Palace was one of the most over funded in the country would have made a lead anywhere, while her front page scoop that many consultants’ private patients were walking out of NHS hospitals without paying their bills was, rightly, picked up by all the nationals. She deserves to go far.”
Production Team of the Year
Esquire
“Esquire slickly achieves a balance between character and matter-of-fact cool, avoiding the OTT self congratulations and hype of many of its men’s market competitors. The magazine has an authoritative and consistent tone of voice that comes from the thoughtful and thought provoking standfirsts, crossheads and captions. Headlines are playful and witty without descending into too many puns. The volume of work for the number of people on the subs desk is impressive.”
Magazine Designer of the Year
Jonathan Gregory, Dirt Magazine
“Attractive use of fonts contributing to distinctive creative identity.”
Editor of the Year
David Burton, Camouflage (by unanimous decision)
“It would have been so easy for a magazine spearheading the Army’s Youth Information scheme to be dry and dull, but Camouflage is anything but. The design is truly innovative, and David Burton’s aim to ‘enthuse, educate, excite and inform’ readers is met 100%. It is full of energy, great ideas, and impactful photography and is truly original. An impressively innovating title for such a niche brief.”
Best-Designed B2B magazine
Dean Dorat, Contagious
“Contagious has beautiful attention to detail. It goes the extra mile and has a confidence beyond most in this sector.”
Best-Designed Customer magazine
Dan Delaney, Onelife
“A customer magazine has to reflect the brand. Land Rover Onelife does much more than this. Enlightening content, beautiful attention to detail. Everything comes together to make the perfect customer magazine. One Life is a beautiful magazine, full of wonderful photography that the modern and minimal house style really allows to sing. Each issue has a theme and this self same minimal house style is twisted into intricately crafted new design shapes that ‘glue’ the issue together, allowing the magazine to have the best of both worlds.”
Best Designed Magazine of the Year Consumer (Under 40k)
Paul Willoughby & Rob Longworth, Little White Lies
“Little White Lies displays a total love of its cinematic subject matter. It’s left field design sensibility is a joy with playful and dramatically inventive graphic and type use to the for. The magazine packs a stark noir punch and at times one is left jealously wondering exactly how some of the typographic effects were chieved… always a good thing!”
Best Designed Magazine of the Year – Consumer (Over 40k)
Meirion Pritchard, Wallpaper
“Wallpaper continues to innovate. A perfect response to its subject matter. Page after page of just stunning design. The most restrained, considered magazine in this category. A triumph.”
Best Designed Magazine of the Year
Meirion Pritchard, Wallpaper
9.55pm: And that’s it for another year. Congratulations to all the winners and well done to everyone who made it on to the shortlist. There’ll be a fuller story at midnight at www.pressgazette.co.uk and hopefully some more quotes and reaction from the winners tomorrow morning. But not too early.
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