Awards madness
8 March 2019
Figures that don’t add up
In Aotearoa New Zealand, Designers Speak (Up) is challenging the male-dominated awards system. By Catherine Griffiths
A new campaign aims to address the gender imbalance in New Zealand design, writes Catherine Griffiths. For the past two decades, the Designers Institute of New Zealand (DINZ) has awarded its top accolade, the Black Pin, 43 times: 40 men, 3 women.
20 December 2017
Lincoln in the limelight
Robert Hanks takes a final look at the cover designs for The Man Booker 2017 shortlist and the winner – George Saunders’ Lincoln in the Bardo
Book design can be an unlovely process – a set of negotiations to find something that satisfies the requirements of design, editorial and sales, with the last inevitably taking precedence. Along the way, art can get sidelined and the results can be garish or banal, writes Robert Hanks.
27 November 2017
Two tribes
It’s always fun to win awards. But what do two wildly different ceremonies tell us about the state of magazine design, editing and publishing? By John L. Walters
Last week I attended two magazine awards ceremonies on two successive days. I don’t make a habit of this, but I was involved as a nominee in both the Stack Awards and those run by the BSME, the British Society of Magazine Editors, writes John L. Walters.
14 October 2017
And then there were six …
The winner of the Man Booker Prize 2017 will be announced on 17 October. Robert Hanks talks to the designers whose covers wrap round the six shortlisted contenders
In ‘The look of literature’ I wrote about the thirteen covers on this year’s Man Booker Prize* longlist – widely praised as one of the most adventurous and wide-ranging ever, writes Robert Hanks.
1 June 2017
Porto’s studio culture
This year’s European Design Awards ceremony was held in the city of Porto, which is about to launch an international design biennale
Last weekend, designers from all over Europe converged on Porto for the European Design Awards (EDA) ceremony. The EDA has been running for the past decade, and now attracts entries from 34 countries, writes John L. Walters.
15 September 2016
Books received #22 (EDA special)
Oldřich Hlavsa, Fairy Tales, FBA: O design gráfico como prática de clarificação, Carved Names and El Protectorado español en Marruecos
The 2016 European Design Awards drew submissions from all across Europe – Poland, Greece, Hungary, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal and beyond (including the United Kingdom).
16 May 2014
Noted #60
Maya pictoglyphs, Comics Unmasked, The Believer film issue with John and Faith Hubley, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Awards, Chermayeff & Geismar, Office
Here are some links to a few exhibitions, books and magazines that caught our attention in recent weeks.
17 July 2013
Best in show
Design through a typographic lens – a report from the TDC Awards in New York by Doug Clouse
The Type Directors Club annual competition captures a portrait of design in our time through the lens of typography, writes Doug Clouse.
14 June 2013
Fag end
We shouldn’t glamourise ‘de-branding’ as cool ‘anti-design’, says Alex Cameron. It’s simply against design.
In March this year, the Australian government’s ‘de-branded’ cigarette packaging design was one of fourteen nominated entries – in the Graphics category – in the Design Museum’s ‘Designs of the Year 2013’ awards / exhibition, writes Alex Cameron.
8 March 2013
Good works … creak
‘Goodvertising’ is one of those hard to love, cut’n’shut words that the advertising industry seems to specialise in constructing. The kind of word that you’d have to steel yourself to employ without the protection of a sturdy pair of inverted commas, writes Andrew Missingham.