BSME Art Directors' Award

This year there will be an Art Director of the Year announced alongside the Editor's titles at the BSME's annual awards ceremony. This was one of the reasons for last weeks BSME Art Director's Forum, a one-off event held in London and chaired by me (details posted here previously). BSME Chair, and Grazia editor, Jane Bruton announced the new award in her introduction, explaining that it reflects the increasing importance of design in publishing.

The four presentations that followed provided proof, if it were needed, to back up Jane's point. Wallpaper*, Grazia, Pick Me Up and Vogue span a broad range of the British newsstand and the speakers made strong cases for the role design plays in each title.

The Q&A session afterwards raised some interesting points, and assuming the recording I made worked OK I hope to run a transcript of the discussion here soon.

One interesting digression; the BSME under-estimated the interest there would be in the event, booking a 70-seat theatre when it turned out they could have sold four times that number of tickets. There is clearly a desire for this type of event. Is it time magazine designers started their own BSME-type organisation? Watch this space