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Winterhouse Writing Awards for Design Writing & Criticism
A program of AIGA and the Winterhouse Institute with yearly prizes of $5,000 and $1,000 for outstanding writing about design.
Description
The Winterhouse Writing Awards seek to increase the understanding and appreciation of design, both within the profession and throughout American life. A program of AIGA, these annual awards have been funded by William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand of the Winterhouse Institute to recognize excellence in writing about design, and to encourage the development of young voices in design writing, commentary and criticism. This program is part of a larger AIGA initiative to stimulate new levels of design awareness and critical thinking about design. The 2006 awards will be presented on October 28, 2006 in New York City.
The awards will be given for writing that demonstrates the greatest evidence of eloquence, analysis, perspective, insight and original thinking to further a public understanding of design in contemporary culture. Writing that advances the visual expression of a design program, argument or thesis is also eligible. Entries may address any design discipline or form, including, but not limited to: architectural, environmental, fashion, graphic, industrial, information, interactive, product and strategic.
Prizes & Eligibility
A writing award of $5,000 is open to writers, critics, scholars, historians, journalists and designers who are US citizens (or full-time residents for at least three years). The writing award is given for a body of work (not only one piece), so candidates must submit three separate works of writing. Any or all of these works may have been previously published, either online or in print. At the time of submission, the writer must be under the age of 40.
An education award, in the amount of $1,000, is open to students (undergraduate or graduate) whose writing, in the interest of making visual work or scholarship or cultural observation, demonstrates extraordinary originality and promise. The education award is for a single work of writing: students may be from any academic discipline, but the subject matter must be about design. At the time of submission, the writer must be under the age of 40, and have been a matriculated student within the past 12 months.
Criteria
A candidate’s submissions may address any of the multiple types of design, including, but not limited to: architectural, environmental, fashion, graphic, industrial, information, interactive, product and strategic. Preference will be given to writing that initiates new ideas (or challenges old ones), and may concern topics ranging from the personal to the polemical. These may include essays and reviews; works of journalism and profiles; history and theory; fiction and non-fiction; poems, plays and screenplays; experimental works; and proposals for projects in which writing about design plays a meaningful role.
2006 Jurors
Jessica Helfand, Chair
A graphic designer and educator, Jessica Helfand is a founding editor of Design Observer, currently the largest online forum for design commentary. She has been a contributing editor for Eye, Print and I.D. Magazine, and has written for numerous national publications, including the Los Angeles Times Book Review and The New Republic. A former writer for television, she is the author of Paul Rand: American Modernist (1998), Screen: Essays on Graphic Design, New Media and Visual Culture (2001) and Reinventing the Wheel (2002), which later formed the basis for an exhibit at the Grolier Club in New York City in 2003.
Kurt Andersen
Kurt Andersen began his career writing on national affairs at Time, where he also spent eight years as the magazine’s architecture and design critic. He is a co-founder of Inside magazine, has been a columnist for The New Yorker and was editor-in-chief of Colors, New York and Spy magazines. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and Architectural Record. As a radio commentator, he has appeared on the Charlie Rose Show, CNN and MSNBC; since 2001, he has hosted Studio 360 on Public Radio International, carried by over 150 public radio stations nationwide. He is the author of the novel Turn of the Century (1999).
Julie Lasky
Editor-in-chief of I.D. Magazine, Julie Lasky was previously the editor of Interiors and the managing editor of Print. She is the recipient of a National Arts Journalism Program Fellowship at Northwestern University, as well as the Richard J. Margolis Award for journalism. Lasky’s essays and book reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including The New York Times, The American Scholar and Forward. Her most recent book is Some People Can’t Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry (2001).
Meghan O’Rourke
Meghan O’Rourke is the culture editor at Slate and a poetry editor at Paris Review. Previously, she worked as a fiction and nonfiction editor at The New Yorker. Her writing and poetry have appeared in Slate, The New Yorker, The Nation, The New Republic, The New York Times and other publications. A book of poems, Halflife, will be published by W.W. Norton in 2007. She is a graduate of Yale University and holds an MFA in poetry from Warren Wilson College.
Submissions
Entries must be submitted online, with an entry fee and completed entry form. The fee is $20 for the education award and $35 for the writing award. All entries must be submitted by visiting: aiga.org/writingawards.
The deadline for submitting entries is June 30, 2006.
All candidates must submit writing in a standard format to ensure that submissions are judged on content rather than on layout. The format for submissions is:
- 8.5 x 11 inch size (portrait orientation)
- One-inch margins in document set-up
- Typeface defined as 10 point Courier
- Text double-spaced in a single column
Writing must be submitted as text only – no images or other graphic elements – in PDF format (other formats will not be accepted). Entries that do not follow these guidelines will not be judged.
Rights & Publication
By submitting work to this competition, the entrant acknowledges the right of AIGA to use accepted work in AIGA publications, on its website, and for educational and AIGA-related promotional purposes. By entering, the entrant grants AIGA non-exclusive publishing rights for the work, and the copyright remains the property of its author. AIGA is dedicated to advancing the winners’ work in various ways, including publication online (e.g., Voice: AIGA Journal of Design), as well as helping the authors connect with various publications and sponsors.
Benefactors
Individuals & Institutions: Sean Adams, AIGA, Art Center College of Design, Michael Bierut, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Carnegie Mellon University School of Design, Brian Collins, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, The Cooper Union Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography, Meredith Davis, Milton Glaser, Alexander Gorlin Architects, Jessica Helfand & William Drenttel, Steven Heller, IDEO, Institute of Design at Illinois Institute of Technology, Ellen Lupton & Abbott Miller, Debbie Millman, MIT School of Architecture and Planning, Clement Mok, Errol Morris, Murray Moss, North Carolina State University Graphic Design Department, Northeastern University Department of Visual Arts, Bruce Nussbaum, Parsons The New School for Design, Princeton Architectural Press, Chris Pullman, Rhode Island School of Design, Rockwell Group, Anthony Russell, School of Visual Arts, Snøhetta, Society of Publication Designers, Syracuse University Goldring Arts Journalism Program, 2x4, Two Twelve Associates, University of Minnesota Design Institute, Rick Valicenti, Michael Vanderbyl, Lella & Massimo Vignelli, Armin Vit & Bryony Gomez-Palacio, Walker Art Center, Weisz + Yoes Architecture and Lorraine Wild. Media Supporters: The Architect’s Newspaper, Communication Arts, Dwell, Eye, How Magazine, I.D. Magazine, Log and Print. Printing & Paper: The Studley Press and Mohawk Paper.