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Judging SPD

This is where I spent the afternoon today, a large assembly room in midtown Manhattan lined with trestle tables of magazines. Under normal circumstances it would be described as cold and unwelcoming but with an attempted snow storm outside this was a haven of warmth and welcome. I caught up with old friends Phil Bicker (one-time Londoner, now creative director of local mag The Fader) and Bob Newman as we went through the submissions for the SPD Awards Magazine of the Year.

All judging processes are basically the same – you look through the entries and mark them all. This one is resolutely low-tech, employing paper, clip-boards and a pencil. Far more efficient than D&AD’s recent reliance on the wireless capability of Nintendo DSs to capture votes (no I’m not joking, although their planned use of the iPod Touch this year must be an improvement).

Every judge – there are about sixty of us – had to give a mark between one (low) and five (high) to each of 75 entries. As each magazine had to submit three different issues, that meant there were 225 magazines to look through. However much you like magazines that’s a lot of looking. For Magazine of the Year you make the effort, but we also had to judge a weird second category – magazine layouts featuring animals (again, I’m not joking), which turned out harder because it was so difficult to grasp the criteria. Magazine of the Year is fine, you know what you’re looking at and can make relative judgements. But designs featuring animals? I guess it’s intended as a piece of light relief, and there’s a charity element with a part of the entry fee being donated to an animal charity, but it was a pretty thankless task –  loads of random covers and spreads featuring an animal of some sort. Everything from worms to elephants via dogs and parrots. Judge that!