SND awards

Yesterday the SND awards were announced (I'm about to have a whinge). Massively disappointing. And for mine not making any sense what-so-ever. 

Last year we won 6 awards. I know in my bones we did work at least to the level we did that year, last year, and i think better ... and much more of it. I can't understand why we were rewarded less.

To add insult to injury, three of the four awards we got were for page design. Fortunately the graphics we won for were full page graphics and the guys that did them also designed the page. So at least the award went to the right person. It cld've easily gone to the wrong person.

Imagine if the graphic was an element of the page and some layout person put the page together. It cld've easily have gone to them.

Never mind that the artist came up with the concept, did the research, executed the job, refined it, bounced it, got it right, did all the heavy lifting .. the award goes to the presentation. Having done both, I know that's the easy part. Not to take away from design - because it is an art but seriously, why is design so comparatively easy to win a gong for design compared to graphics, illustration and photography? As my predecessor wld've said, they hand out design awards like smarties.

It's seriously not right, but at the end of the day they're design awards. Society of Newspaper DESIGN. I've already had a spray on their website abt how biased it is - esp for illustration. xxxxx. 

Next year I just don't think we're going to enter. The design department can, but i don't see the point for graphics and illustration doing it. Maybe it's worth our while to enter full page graphics in the design category. Other than that, graphics can be entered into Malofeij. Illustration? I don't even know how you can judge illustration. It's so subjective but one thing I know is, I don't want to be judged by a panel of designers that can't do what what we can do.

And that's my main point. There is good design. I respect design. But I don't respect this idea of letting people judge us on things that they can't do.

In my honest, albeit biased view, illustrators shld be top of the food chain, followed by graphic designers, photography then design. But what we have is all arse-backward. 

If you really concentrate you can be a designer in 6 months.

For graphics - Simon help me here. A lot of tools to use, understanding data, talent. 3-5 years?

photography? get a camera, point, snap, crop. Be in the right place a the right time. Yves's gonna blow up at me but i've been a commercial photographer's assistant, there's tech to learn and ability to take the right shot. But the same amount of time to become an illustrator? No way.

Illustration. 10 years. you need to be able to draw... that takes time, dedication, ability, practice. PLUS  come up with ideas? more time, ability. there are illustrators that can do the drawing but can't come up with the ideas?  To get both is a rarity. It's an effort. To move text around a page is comparatively easy.

I think SND needs to work out where the real effort comes from and award accordingly. 

It's a huge expense and effort and unless yr a designer, simply not worth it.

We did well last year. This year we should've done better. Somehow that didn't happen. Your mistake. And I'm not interested in letting this collective effect how we're perceived. Of course they have, but never again.

So goodbye SND. You might make changes, introduce sub-categories to illustration .. but it's not good enough. We need real change and real evaluation. artists judging art. graphic ppl judging graphics, and design not getting such an easy run. 

As they say where i come from, harden the f••• up.