Medals, pencils, cubes, elephantine statuettes designed by Alexander Calder—spring always finds us buried in design awards, and we're still in catch-up in mode. Last things first: On Friday, the Society of Publication Designers (SPD) held its annual awards gala at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom to recognize outstanding design, photography, illustration, and online work. WIRED creative director (and outgoing SPD president) Scott Dadich was the Michael Phelps of the evening, taking home a whopping eight gold medals for the Condé Nast publication, including the coveted magazine of the year award and the top honor for overall design of the November 2008 "Future of Food" issue. WIRED also won five silver medals, in categories including feature design and info-graphic (also for the food issue).

Meanwhile, New York continued its domination of best magazine cover accolades with its unstoppable Barbara Kruger-ized depiction of Eliot Spitzer's brain, while The New York Times Magazine took home silver for its March 2008 "End of Republican America?" cover, which featured Andrew Bettles' photo of a deflated red elephant. The night's other big winners included GQ (with 11 medals, including a silver for magazine of the year) and W, which cleaned up in the feature design categories (you go, Edward Leida!) and won gold for its May 2008 "Cairo" photo portfolio by Philip-Lorca DiCorcia. Click here for a full list of this year's SPD winners, and if you missed the gala, check out the SPDtweets Twitter, which posted minute-by-minute updates from Friday's festivities. "AARP art staff is in the house," read an early tweet. "The only art staff that never gets carded for drinks."