FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ARLINGTON, VA – November 1, 2021 – The American Alliance of Museums announced the winners of its annual Publication Design Competition today.

Judges recognized 27 publications in four print categories from 150 submissions from museums and other cultural institutions in the US and internationally across a wide range of disciplines and sizes.

“Despite pandemic disruptions, print media continues to flourish and remains vital in advancing the mission of museums in research, scholarship, and education,” said Dean Phelus, Editor in Chief of Museum magazine. “This year’s AAM Publication Design Competition attracted an amazing array of publications from all types of museums proving the boundless creativity and imagination residing in museum print media.”

The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia received the top prize, the Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design for its exhibition catalogue, NGV Triennial 2020. Designed by Dirk Hiscock the five-volume catalogue brings contemporary art, design, and architecture into dialogue, offering a visually arresting and thought-provoking view of the world through four key themes: illumination, reflection, conservation, and speculation.

For more than 30 years, the Alliance has recognized print media for its overall design excellence that captures the spirit of museums through creativity, innovation, and ingenuity.

Judges for this year’s competition included  Bennett DeOlazo, Creative Director, Studio B; Nancy Hacskaylo, Senior Graphic Designer, Smithsonian Freer and Sackler Galleries; and Selena Robleto, Principal, Red Velvet Creative.

The following is the list of additional winners in the four print categories.

 

Exhibition Catalogues

First Prize  

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Washington, DC

Alexander von Humboldt: Art, Nature, and Culture

Designed by: Karen Siatras, Denise Arnot, Helen McNiell

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Second Prize     

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

San Francisco, CA

Tauba Auerbach  — S ˅ Z

Designed by: Tauba Auerbach with David Reinfurt

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Honorable Mentions

 

Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, IL

El Greco: Ambition and Defiance

Designed by: Fold Four, Inc.

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Asian Art Museum

San Francisco, CA

teamLab: Continuity

Designed by: Martin Venezky of Martin Venezky’s Appetite Engineers

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

National Gallery of Victoria

Melbourne, Australia

TIWI: Art & Artists

Designed by: Thomas Deverall

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Smithsonian American Art Museum

Washington, DC

¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano

Graphics, 1965 to Now

Designed by: Denise Arnot

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

The Cleveland Museum of Art

Cleveland, OH

PROOF: Photography in the Era of the Contact Sheet from the Collection of Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz

Designed by: Nesnadny + Schwartz

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Colby College Museum of Art

Waterville, ME

Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University

Durham, NC and Rizzoli Electa, NY

ROY LICHTENSTEIN: HISTORY IN THE MAKING, 1948 -1960

Designed by: Content Object Design Studio/Los Angeles

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

 

Books

First Prize  

Getty Research Institute

Los Angeles, CA

Hollywood Arensberg: Avant-Garde Collecting in

Midcentury L.A.

Designed by: Mark Nelson

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston

Charleston, SC

INFRA / ULTRA: The Notebooks of Don ZanFagna

Designed by: Gil Shuler Graphic Design

Institutional budget less than $1 million

 

Second Prize

Museum of New Mexico Press

Santa Fe, NM

Gus Foster: American Panoramas

Designed by: Michael Motley

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Honorable Mentions

 

Bard Graduate Center

New York, NY

Bard Graduate Center at 25: Decorative Arts, Design History,

Material Culture

Designed by: Laura Grey

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

National Gallery of Victoria

Melbourne, Australia

After The Australian Ugliness

Designed by: Dirk Hiscock

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Planting Fields Foundation

Oyster Bay, NY

The Great Bird Blind Debate

Designed by: Jeffrey Jenkins

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

The Historic New Orleans Collection

New Orleans, LA

Afro-Creole Poetry in French from Louisiana’s

Radical Civil War-Era Newspapers

Designed by: Nathan Moehlmann, Goosepen Studio & Press

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Newsletters and Calendar of Events

First Prize     

Spencer Museum of Art

Lawrence, KS

View, Spring 2021 Issue

Designed by: Jeffrey McKee; Editor: Elizabeth Kanost; Photographer: Ryan Waggoner

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience

Meridian, MS

PLACE Newsletter

Designed by: Paula Chance

Institutional budget less than $1 million

 

Second Prize     

The Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Qatar

Doha, Qatar

Inside the Majlis

Designed by: Lizzie B Design

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Honorable Mentions

Bard Graduate Center

New York, NY

Bard Graduate Center Spring 2020

Designed by: Kate DeWitt

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

Hartford, CT

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Calendar

Designed by: Wondriska Russo Associates LLC

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Magazines/Scholarly Journals

First Prize     

Cincinnati Art Museum

Cincinnati, OH

1881, issue 17

Designed by: Hyperquake

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Second Prize     

Rhode Island Historical Society

Providence, RI

Rhode Island History

Designed by: Michael Russem

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Honorable Mentions  

Indiana University Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art

Bloomington, IN

Schema: Magazine of the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University

Designed by: Jessie Waymire

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

San Francisco, CA

Fine Arts magazine

Designed by: Benjamin Shaykin

Institutional budget more than $1 million

 

Hennepin History Museum

Minneapolis, MN

Hennepin History, Vol.79, No.2, 2020

Designed by: Linda Koutsky

Institutional budget less than $1 million

 

White House Historical Association

Washington DC

White House History Quarterly, Furnishing the White House:

The Decorative Arts Collection

Designed by: Pentagram

Institutional budget less than $1 million

 

About the American Alliance of Museums

The American Alliance of Museums has been bringing museums together since 1906, helping to develop standards and best practices, gathering and sharing knowledge, and providing advocacy on issues of concern to the entire museum community. Representing more than 35,000 individual museum professionals and volunteers, institutions, and corporate partners serving the museum field, the Alliance stands for the broad scope of the museum community. For more information, visit www.aam-us.org.

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Press Contact:

Natanya Khashan, Director of Marketing & Communications
American Alliance of Museums
media@aam-us.org