The winners of the third annual Stack Awards were announced at The Queen of Hoxton in London on Monday 20 November 2017. Special congratulations on the night went to Buffalo Zine, which won Magazine of the Year, and to MacGuffin, which took home both Editor of the Year and Art Director of the Year. Click on the categories below to see the winners and commended titles, along with the full shortlists and information on our judges.
These are the remarkable magazines that excelled in 2017, producing the highest quality content to deliver on a strong and clear editorial concept.
They were all published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017, and the judges considered the magazines in their entirety, looking for originality, innovation and clarity, as well as the overall quality of content, design and production.
The judges:
Jeremy Leslie leads the magCulture studio, dividing his time between designing, consulting and writing. He’s a passionate advocate for editorial design, has written several books about the subject, and the magCulture online Journal is a key source of news and opinion. He organises the annual ModMag conferences in London and New York and runs the magCulture shop, home of the monthly magCulture Meets evenings.
Gail Bichler is the design director of The New York Times Magazine. Her work is in the permanent collection of The Art Institute of Chicago and has been recognised by D&AD, the Art Director’s Club (ADC), the American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA), The Type Directors Club (TDC), and American Illustration. In 2016 the Society of Publication Designers (SPD) named The New York Times Magazine their Magazine of the Year.
These are the magazines that made a bright start in 2017, launching with an exciting new editorial concept and high quality content.
They were all published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017, and the judges considered the magazines in their entirety, looking for originality, innovation and clarity, as well as the overall quality of content, design and production.
The judges:
Malte Brenneisen and Urs Spindler are two of the founders of the editorial and design studio “Die Brueder”. Their love of publications produced outside the mainstream led them to create indiemags.de, an archive of independent magazines, and Indiecon, an annual festival for independent magazines. They also publish gentle rain, a ‘glocal’ city magazine about Hamburg.
Rob Alderson is managing editor of WeTransfer, where he curates the background images given to artists and designers and oversees the This Works blog. Previously he was editor-in-chief of It’s Nice That and has written for the likes of BBC.com, The Guardian, Dezeen and Creative Review.
The editors of these magazines demonstrated clear and original editorial vision, skilfully packaging their ideas into a compelling and engaging read.
These magazines were all published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017. The judges considered a single issue in its entirety, looking for stories that come together to form a cohesive and characterful whole, with attention given to long-form writing, but also to headlines, picture captions and story selection.
The judges:
Christoph Amend is the editor-in-chief of ZEITmagazin and publisher of ZEIT’s art magazine Weltkunst. ZEITmagazine’s international issue, a bi-annual in English, was launched in 2013, and ZEITmagazin MANN, a bi-annual stand alone men’s magazine, was launched in 2016. Before joining DIE ZEIT, Amend was the editor of the Sunday supplement of Der Tagesspiegel and deputy editor of Süddeutsche Zeitung jetzt-Magazin. He also started writing a daily newsletter this Spring – to subscribe, visit zeitmagazin.de
Tom Edwards is the executive producer of Monocle 24 radio. Tom has worked on titles ranging from Art Review magazine to The Independent (when it was still a proper newspaper). Each week he scrutinises the best titles and chats to key industry figures on M24’s print industry review and analysis programme, The Stack.
The art directors of these magazines elevated their publication through skilful and distinctive design that helped them to stand out from the crowd.
These magazines were published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017, and the judges considered a single issue in its entirety. They looked for characterful design that defines and amplifies the issue’s editorial identity. Attention was paid to picture selection, fonts, layout and production to identify the creation of an exceptional magazine brand.
The judges:
Will Hudson is founder of It’s Nice That and innovation director across the HudsonBec Group – a group of companies that exist to enable creativity to thrive. Founded by Will Hudson and Alex Bec the group provides a framework for a series of small, beautifully structured companies that share a purpose, set of values, a studio space and above all, a belief in the power of creativity. Companies within the group currently include media company It’s Nice That, creative agency Anyways and online resource Lecture in Progress.
Debbie Millman is a designer, author, educator and brand strategist. She is host of the award-winning podcast Design Matters, the world’s first podcast on design; Chair of the world’s first Masters in Branding Program at the School of Visual Arts; the editorial and creative director of Print Magazine and President Emeritus of AIGA. She is the author of six books on design and branding.
These magazines featured the year’s best, most inventive, most enticing magazine covers. The point of a cover is to make people pick up the magazine, so the judges looked for the covers they just couldn’t resist, published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017.
The judges:
The former art director of the New York Times Book Review, Steven is the current co-chair of SVA’s MFA Design: Designer as Author and Entrepreneur programme. He is the author of over 170 books, including Merz to Emigre and Beyond: Avant Garde Magazine Design of the 20th Century and 100 Classic Graphic Design Magazines (with Jason Godfrey). His most recent book is Graphic Design Rants and Raves.
The guy behind Coverjunkie.com, ‘an addiction to creative magazine covers you wanna lick’, Jaap is also art director of Volkskrant Magazine, and earlier this year he was named Art Director of the Year in the Netherlands.
These are the magazines that published the year’s most outstanding photography. The judges looked for images that made readers stop and stare, considering a magazine’s photography in its entirety. The photographs did not need to be original (they may have been published elsewhere before appearing in the magazine) but consideration was given to the way they are presented, in terms of showing the quality of the image, and the way the image sits alongside text and other page elements. The issues submitted were published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017
The judges:
The owner of Artwords, the London bookshop specialising in publications on the visual arts, media and culture, Ben has been involved in books and publishing since the 1990s, previously managing the Serpentine Gallery’s book sales and publications.
Clare Grafik is Head of Exhibitions at The Photographers’ Gallery in London. In her time there she has worked on exhibitions and projects with artists including Taryn Simon, Cuny Janssen and Zineb Sedira. She has worked in a number of public institutions in London including the ICA, Whitechapel Gallery, Hayward Gallery and National Portrait Gallery. She has been a Sessional Lecturer at Birkbeck College, London, has lectured at institutions including University of the Arts, Westminster University, University of South Wales, Sotheby’s Institute of Art, and is on the Editorial Board of ‘Studies in Photography’ magazine.
These magazines published the best, most characterful, most distinctive illustrations of the year.
The judges considered the magazine’s illustrated content in its entirety, and the issue submitted had to have been published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017. Combining excellent artwork with a clear editorial purpose, the winning illustrations were conceptually rich as well as aesthetically pleasing, adding an extra dimension to the magazine’s stories.
The judges:
Olivia Ahmad is curator at House of Illustration, the UK’s only public gallery dedicated to illustration and graphic arts. Since its opening in 2014, she has been responsible for its programme of exhibitions on historic and contemporary illustration, artist residencies and commissions. Before joining House of Illustration, Olivia worked for the Northern Design Festival, Seven Stories National Centre for Children’s Books and Tyne & Wear Archives and Museums. Her recent exhibitions include Comix Creatrix: 100 Women Making Comics, Laura Carlin: Ceramics and A New Childhood: Picture Books from Soviet Russia.
Simon Armstrong is the book buyer for Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Tate Liverpool, and has been putting books and magazines on art, design and visual culture into people’s hands and heads for over 15 years. Simon was previously the head of retail at the Design Museum in London and store manager at Magma Manchester, following several years working as a bookseller. He also works as a freelance publishing agent and is the author of books on art and architecture. Simon is currently writing a new book on the history of graffiti and street art, set for publication in 2019.
These magazines featured the most exceptional interviews, reportage and other writing based on real events. The judges looked for original storytelling that informs and engages the reader with a distinctive editorial voice.
The work had to be written in English, and it had to have been published for the first time between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017.
The judges:
Govind is CEO and co-founder of curio.io — ‘The Netflix of high-quality audio’, with articles from top publications including The Financial Times, The Guardian and Aeon brought to life by superb voice actors. Govind previously worked as a strategist at the BBC, and is a graduate of the LSE, Imperial College and the Royal College of Art.
Barbara Rowlands is an academic and freelance writer and runs the MA in Magazine Journalism at City, University of London. She has written for the Observer, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Times, The Sunday Times, and other consumer magazines and the specialist press, and she loves reading and talking about magazines.
In this category the judges looked for fresh, distinctive fiction that stood out for its inventive ideas and memorable writing.
The work had to be written in English, and it had to have been published for the first time between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017.
The judges:
Glory Edim is the publishing outreach specialist at Kickstarter, where she helps writers use the platform to build community and find support for their creative endeavours. She has worked as a creative strategist for over 10 years at startups and cultural institutions, including the Lincoln Theatre, The Webby Awards and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She is also the founder of Well-Read Black Girl (WRBG), an online community that celebrates the uniqueness of Black literature & sisterhood. WRBG’s mission is to increase the visibility of Black women writers and initiate meaningful conversation with readers.
Ted Hodgkinson is a broadcaster, editor, critic, writer and Senior Programmer for Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre. He currently sits on the judging panel of the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award for the best second novel and the selection panel for the Rockefeller Foundation’s Bellagio Fellowship.
These are the year’s best magazines published by or affiliated to a university, college or school. The magazine must have been creatively led by students, though it may include content and contributions by non-students. It had to have been published between 1 October 2016 and 30 September 2017 and it had to have been released and distributed to readers, so proofs of concept and sample issues produced solely for use in class were not eligible.
The judges looked for exciting, innovative magazines that engage the reader with a clear editorial concept and carefully considered design. We wanted to see titles that use the platform provided by a student magazine to do things differently and try something new.
The judges:
Angharad Lewis is a writer, editor and lecturer based in London, specialising in the fields of design, culture and publishing. She is co-editor of Grafik.net and contributes to a number of international publications. Angharad has also contributed to and authored a number of books, including, most recently, So You Want To Publish a Magazine, published by Laurence King. She is a lecturer in Visual Communication, runs a publishing-themed studio and is Course Leader in BA Design for Publishing at The Cass School of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University.
Ruth Jamieson is author of Print Is Dead, Long Live Print, a book that delves deep into the current resurgence in independent magazine publishing around the world. She has a monthly column covering magazines on eyeondesign.aiga.org and she’s a guest lecturer at London College of Fashion and the University of the Creative Arts.
We’re working to the definition suggested at Indiecon 2014: “The chiefs are the makers – the people who take care of the financial decisions are responsible for the magazine’s content or design”. If you’d like to check whether your magazine qualifies under this definition, please drop us a line.
The awards will be judged in English because it’s the common language of the judges. Non-English magazines are welcome, but please bear in mind that the judges will have limited understanding of non-English text.
No – the Stack Awards are intended as a celebration of the best independent magazines, and we want to work directly with those magazine makers. If you’re a writer, photographer or illustrator and you want to have your work considered, you’ll need to persuade the people who published your work to enter it for you.
All magazines left over at the end of the process will be sold in our Magazines for Good event, held on Saturday 9 December at The Ace Hotel, and the proceeds donated to charity.
