magazines

The Society of Publication Designers has announced the finalists in its annual design competition, now in its 47th year. On the print side—chaired by Luke Hayman (Pentagram), Jeremy Leslie (MagCulture), and Richard Turley (Bloomberg Businessweek)—the hotly anticipated “Magazine of the Year” category is dominated by men’s titles, including last year’s big winner, GQ, along with three chiseled faces from abroad: IL – Intelligence in Lifestyle (a magazine of Italian business daily Il Sole 24 ORE), Lotus, and Port. They’ll duke it out against a trio of nimble weeklies: fresh-faced Bloomberg Businessweek, TIME, and ever-snappy New York. Also among the well-deserved finalists in various print categories: The New York Times Magazine‘s inspired “Can the Bulldog Be Saved?” cover, the terrific “Forever Kate” issue of Elle Collections (UK), September W portfolios by the unstoppable Stevens (Meisel and Klein), and the “United States of Design” feature in Fast Company, which is also a contender for best redesign. And over in the digital category, co-chairs Scher Ford (Time Inc.) and Joe Zeff (Joe Zeff Design) virtually sifted through a record number of entries. Among the tablet apps that emerged at the top are those of Bloomberg Businessweek, GQ, and SPIN. Click here to download the full list of SPD finalists. The gold and silver medal winners in each category will be announced on May 11 at a gala in New York.

Kudos to New York, which this week announced that it has embarked on the downright rare project of a magazine launch—and in the shelter category, no less. New York Design Hunting will debut in May, just in time for the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (May 19-22 in NYC), under the editorial leadership of New York design editor Wendy Goodman. The standalone magazine will feature her “aspirational and practical” approach to home design, according to a press release issued yesterday. Expect the annual publication to “combine features, service journalism, and comprehensive listings, and deliver the gorgeous photography and smart writing that readers expect from New York,” and possibly a clawfoot bathtub covered in golden glass tiles, if the prototype cover (pictured) is any indication. Why launch a home design title now? Believe it or not, ad pages in the home category climbed by double-digits in 2011. “There’s momentum that I haven’t seen in the past,” New York magazine publisher Larry Burstein told WWD earlier this week. “We are having a shelter moment.”

The world of design can be intimidating to some, but Dwell‘s team of editors strives to show the field’s friendlier, welcoming side.

“Dwell has always been about showing real people in real homes,” said editor-in-chief Amanda Dameron. “We don’t send stylists, and we don’t want people to create an artificial idea of how they live in their home.”

With its recent expansion, the pub is wide open to ambitious freelancers — and photographers. “We put a lot of resources behind how we tell our stories visually. So when we’re reviewing initial ideas, having good pics always helps,” Dameron said.

Think you can nail the mag’s voice? Read How To Pitch: Dwell for a full list of those editors accepting pitches. [sub req'd]

Before planning your next trip, be sure to review the newly crowned winners of the Travel + Leisure Design Awards, which will be featured in the magazine’s March issue (on newsstands next Friday). The 2012 winners range from the Zaha Hadid-designed Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi to the ultimate in travel-friendly apparel (the 1964 by Scott James blazer and Issey Miyake‘s eminently packable origami folding clothing). Many of this year’s favorites will come as no surprise, including the city-friendly Fiat 500 (best car) and Leica’s drool-worthy D-Lux 5 Titanium Set (best camera). Preston Scott Cohen‘s smart and sculptural Herta and Paul Amir Building at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art got the nod for best museum (edging out the Brad Cloepfil-designed Clyfford Still Museum, alas), and two NYC destinations—Jane’s Carousel Pavilion in Brooklyn and the Freitag Store—won for best public space and best retail space, respectively. Meanwhile, 2012 T+L Design Champion H.E. Mubarak Hamad Al Muhairi, the driving force behind Abu Dhabi’s transformation and evolution as a cultural and design capital, joins past honorees such as ubercollector Micky Wolfson, André Balazs, and Amanda Burden. Tasked with choosing “the best new examples of design” in 20 categories was a jury moderated by Chee Pearlman that included architect Billie Tsien, fashion designer Derek Lam, High Line pioneer Robert Hammond, and artist Michele Oka Doner. Keep reading for the full list of winners.
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“The magazine isn’t the by-product of external pressure. I wasn’t all like, ‘F— Bon Appétit; I’m starting my own food magazine.’ I like Bon Appétit. It was an opportunity to work with friends at McSweeney’s, a chance to try my hand at a new format, and a chance to showcase and support some writers and artists we know. The first audience I think about is us: Can we make something we don’t hate? Then it’s my friends: Can I create something they will think is cool even though they have to listen to me bitch all the time? Then it’s people out in the world. And my secret hope is that a certain aspect of the magazine leads them down an unexpected alley—reading more Junichiro Tanizaki, or chasing down a Bill Orcutt record, or seeking out Kay & Ray’s potato chips.

I think Dave is incapable of stopping himself from following ideas that interest him. He doesn’t have a brand he’s worried about; he’s not worried about a message; he’s not interested in trying to create something that’s going to be a blockbuster. Failure is an option, but only when you’ve done something that says, ‘This is the most honest thing we can put out there.’ So that allows us to make it as weird as we want because we believe in what we’re doing.”

-Writer Peter Meehan on Lucky Peach, the quarterly journal he created with New York chef David Chang (Momofoku), in an interview with Charlotte Druckman that appears in this month’s issue of WSJ. magazine.

Brad Goreski wasn’t always the beacon of style he is today. In our Media Beat interview, the star of It’s a Brad, Brad World revealed that he had to overcome a lack of access (he’s originally from a tiny town in Canada) and the doubts of others to climb to the top. One college career counselor, in particular, was quite taken aback by a young Goreski’s outsize ambition.

“She’s like, ‘Okay, so what do you wanna do?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m gonna get an internship at Vogue in New York.’ And she was like, ‘Excuse me?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m gonna get an internship at Vogue. Is that possible for me to get credit and go to New York?’ And she was like, ‘If you get the internship…’ And I was like, ‘Okay!’” Goreski told us. “And I came back later with all my paperwork, and she was like, ‘Are you really going to New York?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah! I’m going to work at Vogue!’”

Now, with a hit show on Bravo and Born to Be Brad: My Life in Style So Far due in bookstores in March, the taste maker credits those early work experiences for his success.

“Internships are so instrumental but, not only do you need to get them, you need to work at them,” he said.

Part 1: Breakout Styling Star Brad Goreski Takes Us Inside His Brad, Brad World
Part 2: Brad Goreski Sets the Record Straight on His Relationship with Rachel Zoe

One of the main design minds behind the sharp-looking and widely lauded pages of GQ is headed for New York. Thomas Alberty has been named design director of the weekly, which lost Chris Dixon to Vanity Fair in September. The appointment is another boon for the art side of New York‘s masthead, following the recent appointment of Christopher Anderson as the inaugural photographer-in-residence.

“Tom is a hugely talented designer and maybe more importantly a very smart one, and I am thrilled he has accepted our invitation to become the next design director of New York,” said editor-in-chief Adam Moss in a statement issued Friday. “There is a long history of big design talents at this magazine’s helm, and I feel confident that tradition will continue.” Alberty has been with GQ since 2004, most recently as art director, and previously worked at New York, Travel + Leisure, and Men’s Journal. He begins in his new post on February 6 and will join art director Randy Minor, photography director Jody Quon, and the rest of the magazine’s visual team to create what Moss describes as “the next, exciting incarnation of New York.”

New year, new masthead additions! Over at Fortune, Emily Kehe (pictured) has been doing the heavy lifting on the art side since August, when creative director John Korpics left the Time Inc. title to get sporty, as vice president and creative director for print and digital media for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com. Kehe jumped into designing Fortune covers and layouts, overseeing the iPad edition, and managing the department, according to managing editor Andy Serwer. “So much so that when it came time to find a permanent replacement for John, and while we did consider other candidates, I really needed to look no further than a few doors down to Emily’s office,” he wrote in an e-mail announcing Kehe’s appointment as design director. A native of Colorado, she studied publication design and photography at the University of Miami School of Communication before working at publications including The Miami Herald and The Boston Globe. Kehe began her career at Fortune as a freelancer in 2008 and later returned to help Korpics with the magazine’s 2010 redesign.

And over at New York, editor-in-chief Adam Moss and photography director Jody Quon have tapped Christoper Anderson as the magazine’s first photographer-in-residence, a position created both to showcase his work and deepen New York’s commitment to original photography. “We thought that we could be the ideal outlet for Chris to explore his painter’s palette of image-making,” said Quon in a statement issued Monday by the magazine. “Chris’s commitment to journalism combined with his range of artistry makes him the perfect partner for the magazine.” Anderson, an acclaimed photographer and member of Magnum Photos, will shoot editorial work exclusively for New York on an array of subjects in a full range of styles, from photojournalism to portraiture to conceptual work. His photography will appear regularly beginning with this week’s issue, which features Anderson’s surveillance-style photos in its “Classifieds” cover story.

Remember Time Style & Design? Time launched the targeted quarterly in 2003 as an oversized glossy and pulled the plug on it in September 2009, blaming the dismal economy for what was described as a “suspension” rather than a shuttering. Now comes word that Time Style & Design will return in 2012, with sleek spring (March) and fall (September) issues that “will explore the most intriguing ideas and most influential players in the fields of fashion, art, architecture, music, travel, technology, and more” (a minimalist mock cover featuring actress Vera Farmiga is pictured at right). With a U.S. rate base of 500,000, the publication is being pitched to prospective advertisers as “impeccably crafted, with vibrant design, gorgeous photography, and smart, cogent writing.” And while the fall issue’s publication will be timed to coincide with New York Fashion Week, expect a more broad-based dose of design, style, and cultural coverage. “The previous iteration of it was probably more focused on fashion than this one will be,” Time managing editor Richard Stengel told Adweek. “In that sense, this represents the kinds of things I’m more interested in, the things I think the Time reader is more interested in.” Meanwhile, watch this space for new Style & Design online offerings.