About the 2008 awards

AIGA and the Winterhouse Institute presented the third annual Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism to three recipients: David Barringer, Annie Simpson and Joshua Yaffa. A program of AIGA, these annual awards were founded by William Drenttel and Jessica Helfand of the Winterhouse Institute to recognize excellence in writing about design and to encourage the development of voices under 40 engaged in critical thinking about design and visual culture in the United States. Although there has been only one professional Writing Award and one Education Award granted annually to date, that year’s jury made a surprise decision to recognize two exceptional students to both receive Education Awards. The three were awarded at the fifth annual AIGA Design Legends Gala on September 18, 2008, in New York City.

The awards were judged by three distinguished writers and editors, each of whom is renowned for exceptional writing about design and visual culture: Michael Bierut, a partner at Pentagram in New York and co-founder of the Design Observer blog; Kevin Lippert, founder and publisher of Princeton Architectural Press; and Judith Thurman, author and cultural critic for The New Yorker.

“Although we had fewer student entries, there were so many good ones that we elected to give two Education Awards this year,” noted Winterhouse partner and Design Observer co-founder Jessica Helfand, who also chaired this year’s judging. “We were particularly taken with Josh Yaffa’s insightful writing and encouraged that, as a journalism student with global interests, he chose to write so thoughtfully about graphic design and public space, while Annie Simpson captivated us with her skilled prose as a theorist, representing a completely different perspective on—and appreciation for—the role of scholarship in writing about architecture. As for David Barringer, the judges were unanimous: his writing is fresh and original, representing precisely the kind of new voice this award seeks to acknowledge.”

The awards are supported by the generosity of more than 50 benefactors, including schools and universities, design firms and individuals, print and online media, and paper and printing benefactors.

Submissions for the 2009 awards will be accepted starting on March 2, 2009.