Perennial favourites Toronto Life and Saturday Night were the big winners last night at the 24th annual National Magazine Awards ceremony in Toronto. Toronto Life, a monthly, and Saturday Night, a weekly insert in the Saturday edition of The National Post, each received seven gold awards, with Toronto Life also picking up three silver awards and Saturday Night 11 silver.
A total of $72,500 was handed out by the National Magazine Awards Foundation in close to 40 categories.
Azure, the glossy Toronto-based design and architecture magazine, was named magazine of the year, with Lola, a feisty visual arts publication, also based in Toronto, receiving runner-up honours. MoneySense, a monthly periodical and Web publication produced by Rogers in Toronto, was named best new magazine.
Also receiving multiple awards were Shift (three golds, all in photography and art direction); L'actualité (two gold, three silver); Maclean's (two gold); R.O.B. Magazine; Canadian Geographic; Outpost; President's Choice (the last four each winning one gold and two silver medals); Border Crossings, Outdoor Canada and Arc (the last three each receiving one gold and one silver).
Among the big individual winners were Toronto-based Norman Doidge, who won the $3,000 President's Medal for a profile of Saul Bellow in Saturday Night and a $1,500 gold-medal prize for best profile for the same piece. Receiving two gold awards was Globe and Mail contributor Urjo Kareda who won in the column-writing and arts and entertainment categories for his work in Toronto Life.
Ken Rodmell, veteran art director for various Key Porter-Toronto publications such as Toronto Life, Quill & Quire and Toronto Life Fashion, received the NMAF award for outstanding achievement, while Matthew McKinnon took the Alexander Ross Award for best new magazine writer for articles he wrote for Shift.
Winning big in the presentation categories was Saturday Night art director Leanne Shapton. She took a gold for best magazine cover and three silvers (in fashion and beauty, art direction for a single article, art direction for an entire issue). Veteran Toronto photographer George Whiteside won two golds for work he did with Gardening Life and President's Choice Magazine and a silver, also for President's Choice.
Globe and Mail feature writer Sarah Hampson took first prize in the "one-of-a-kind" category for an article in Toronto Life, while Trevor Cole was the gold medal winner in the business-writing category, for a piece published in R.O.B. Magazine. Staff