And the winners are...

Actually two winners and one shortlisted, but these three magazines have all received accolades of some sort today, and all with good reason. Together they represent what’s possible when magazines don’t just follow the crowd.

First up is Bloomberg Businessweek, winner of MagPile’s first ‘Best Design’ award. What’s significant about this is that the group of judges – mainly bloggers and designers, myself included – had a completely open brief to compile a shortlist and then vote together for an outright winner. Among a group of smaller, more idiosyncratic magazines (The New York Times Magazine and Esquire Spain were the only other ‘mainstream’ titles listed) Bloomberg Businessweek stood out for the sheer invention of its weekly front covers and its continued commitment to innovative presentation of good content. Even as fellow US weekly Newsweek gave up on print, BBW continued to improve sales, using photography, illustration and infographics with conviction and purpose.

One of my personal standouts of last week’s magRush series here on magCulture was The Gourmand, something backed up by the audience figures across the week. So it’s good to see it win MagPile’s ‘Best New Magazine’ award. In the ever-busier world of food publishing it is satisfying to discover a new voice with such life. Another successful marriage of content and design that oozes self-assurance, it is quite obvious its makers are enjoying themselves. See the full lists for both awards here.

Finally, today saw the announcement by London’s Design Museum of their shortlist (if 90 items can be considered a shortlist) for this year’s Designs of the Year. Not much there on the magazine front, but very pleasing to see my nomination of The Gentlewoman’s Angela Lansbury cover included. I’ve liked The Gentlewoman from the start but this was the issue it discovered itself (also included in the 90 is Occupied Times; see the full list here).