TAKEAWAY: We celebrate the winners this Monday, with two of our projects. Paris Match, the legendary French weekly, has been recognized as Magazine of the Year in France; Gulf News of the UAE wins four awards, including Gold for breaking news and infographics.
Illustration by Massimo Gentile/Il Secolo XIX
Paris Match: portrait of a winner
In 2008: Editor Olivier Royant and I review prototype pages as we prepared to launch the new look of Paris Match
What an honor for Paris Match!
That most legendary of all French publications, Paris Match, has been honored with the Magazine of the Year award. It is a tribute not just to the wonderful work of Editor Olivier Royant and his team, but also to the fact that print publications can still thrive, seduce and produce great journalism and superb visual presentation through the mixture of ink and paper.
We at Garcia Media worked with the Paris Match team, and closely with Olivier and with Paris Match art director, Michel Maiquez, when the magazine underwent a rethinking in 2008, perhaps one of our most treasured project experiences.
In awarding Paris Match the Magazine of the Year honor, the judges had this to say”
“The encounter with a year of spectacular current information (from the Arab Spring to the Tsunami, two dazzling marriages) have allowed Paris Match to pass the million copies mark. It also shows the work of a journalistic team that knows that hard work pays when it comes to packaging current events excellently well.”
I am delighted, but not at all surprised, having worked with the Paris Match team and observing, first hand, how a sense of old fashioned journalism prevails here, all the benefit of the readers.
I remember that when faced with the enormous task of redesigning Paris Match, for me, personally, the most challenging task was to maintain all that makes Paris Match so special: those double page photo spreads, the people oriented coverage, the spirit of featury sections like Vivre Match and the newsy tone of Match de la Semaine, which we designed as a contemporary newspaper.
Now four years later, Paris Match manages to do all of that well, but it also reacts to current events with panache, emphasizing good photos that are accompanied by mini stories. On the cover, headlines seduce the readers.
I am always amazed at the journalistic depth of Paris Match. Editor Olivier Royant knows that the formula for his magazine is a combination of good narratives that invite the reader to sit by the fireplace or the garden with his copy of Paris Match, but with a balanced dose of celebrity news, titillating tidbits about the life of the rich and famous, and, indeed, newsy accounts of the week that was.
It is no small task to manage to carry this off well.
Olivier Royant continues to be one of the most visionary editors with whom I ever worked.
To see him planning an issue of Paris Match is to see a master at work, and I am honored that I had a chance to do that, not once, but several times.
“We are very happy because this prestigious prize acknowledged the work of all our news staff in 2011,” Olivier tells me.
That Paris Match continues to thrive, and to exceed expectations, in a world where some look at printed products as anachronistic, is, indeed, a tribute to Olivier and his team, and Michel’s astute art direction.
The judges apparently agree.
Congratulations to the team.
Gulf News: Best in Design
We continue celebrating the winners this Monday.
In Dubai, the Gulf News, a Garcia Media client of the past 9 years, has garnished four awards from the WAN-IFRA Asia contest.
Miguel Gomez, design director of the Gulf News, tells us about the awards:
These awards are a recognition to the talent of the Design team and probe that when we collaborate for a common goal the result is always rewarding to us and appreciated by the readers, all the awards have their own significance:
1. Gold and Silver for magazine infographics, shows that people want to know how things work and we are able to explain it, this two infographics were produced by Dwynn R. Trazo, senior infographist for Friday magazine.
Gold, Best in Infographics—Magazine
2. Silver on overall design for newspapers, recognizes our daily efforts to provide readers with an easy to read and navigate paper.
Silver Award for Best in Design: Newspaper
3. Gold on breaking news editorial content for newspapers, probes that when you have a great story and the newsroom works coordinated to tell it, the result is amazing.
Congratulations to a talented and devoted team.