It was alright on the night for Carlos, which scored a hat-trick at last week’s Magazine Design Awards, held at London’s The Brewery
Carlos, the magazine for first-class passengers of Virgin Atlantic, left the competition grounded at the Magazine Design Awards, scooping three awards, including the overall prize for best designed magazine.
Carlos beat strong competition from other finalists Edit, Observer Sports Monthly, Intersection and Bogey, having also clinched the awards for best use of illustration and best designed customer magazine of the year.
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The judges described the magazine as “shocking and well executed – the most distinctive in the category”, adding: “This magazine wouldn’t work without the imagination that has gone into the design. Incredible use of illustration. It pulls you to put it in your bag.”
Warren Jackson, art director of Carlos, said the team had not expected to win all three. “It was a surprise because we were up against pretty good competition, but it stands out in its sector and sets a trend for a lot of other things,” he said.
“When we launched we were not inspired by the photography that was around, so we thought let’s draw it.
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We just said this is the future – this is what we should be doing.”
Edit, from Getty Images, was named best designed B2B magazine, for being “fresh, lovable, coherent and unexpected”.
The Observer Sport Monthly was voted best designed newspaper supplement and golf magazine Bogey won the accolade of best designed consumer magazine (with a circulation over 40,000). Branded “above par in every aspect”, Bogey won praise from the judges for its fashion spreads and “daring” art direction.
Car magazine Intersection picked up the prize for best designed consumer magazine (with a circulation under 40,000). One judge said it “refreshingly stands apart from all the other titles”.
B2B front cover of the year went to The Marketer which was classed “clever, cool, effective and bold”. The New Statesman collected the award in the specialist consumer category for its take on weapons of mass destruction.
The cover featured Tony Blair with the weapons coming out of the top of his head and the coverline: “Found! Those WMDs.”
Art editor David Gibbons said he was delighted that the New Statesman, with its “absolutely minute” budget, had managed to pick up the prize.
“The art department is essentially me, although I have great help from a photoshop wizard and former Sunday Times magazine art director Michael Rand,” said Gibbons. “It’s absolutely fantastic to have won this when we were up against magazines with much larger departments and budgets.”
The Sunday Times Magazine won front cover of the year (with a circulation of over 40,000) in the mass market category and Easyjet’s inflight magazine, Easyjet, clinched the award for its ‘Dirty Weekend’ cover in the customer magazine category.
The prize for the best designed fashion pages went to Loaded for using a dog to showcase the latest jewellery while The Guardian Weekend won the award for best use of photography.
Icon scooped the accolade for best use of typography and the prize for best designed feature pages went to Time magazine. Tred, the magazine for JD Sports, was named the best designed launch – “energised and spot on”, said the judges.
While the award for redesign/relaunch of the year went to Ace Tennis Magazine which the judges felt “keeps the ball moving all the way through from the striking cover onwards”
By Ruth Addicott
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