The efforts of Creative Director Helder Suffenplan’s design team and the editorial team around publisher and Editor-in-Chief, Holger Homann, have been recognized by the red dot award, one of the world’s largest and best-known design competitions: The magazine’s first edition was awarded the coveted “best of the best” distinction, in honor of the highest level of quality in design.
“I’m very happy about this high-level distinction,” said Helder Suffenplan. “It’s a great appreciation for a concept that is fundamentally unwieldy: UPON PAPER magazine is not easy reading, and it demands the full attention and involvement of its readers. The jury has honored this ambition and that makes the entire team very proud.”
The 2012 red dot jury consisted of 15 renowned experts from around the world: They assessed every one of the 6,823 submissions from 43 countries. There are always a few submissions that stand out, despite the universally high level of quality, and these exceptional works are recognized with the “red dot: best of the best” for exceptional creative achievements.
UPON PAPER, which is entirely independent in terms of its content and design, is an initiative of the long-esteemed paper manufacturer Hahnemühle FineArt. “I’m very happy about this great award for the UPON PAPER team,” said Michael Siekiera, co-publisher of the magazine and Managing Director of Hahnemühle. “This award caps the very pleasing development of our project to date and gives us further reason to look to the future with optimism.”
And the suspense is not at an end: The “red dot: best of the best” award winners will have to wait until the award ceremony, on October 24, 2012, to learn which of them is to be further honored with the highest level of distinction, the “red dot: grand prix,” awarded once in each category. Helder Suffenplan, Creative Director of the magazine, has won this coveted trophy once before, in 2009.
With its unconventional format of 49 × 69 cm, printed in high-tech stochastic (FM) screening on 170 g/m² art paper, and produced at the same level of quality as an art book, UPON PAPER sees itself as both object and magazine. The unbound folios can even be individually removed and used as posters.
Each edition of the magazine features its own theme, which is set in a dynamic relationship to the overarching topic of “paper.” UPON PAPER magazine #01, which won the award, was devoted to the metropolis of Los Angeles. “With this acknowledgement of our efforts helping to push us on, we will have even more strength to swim against the current of mediocrity and onward toward our next task,” says Editor-in-Chief Holger Homann, as he looks forward to UPON PAPER magazine #02, which will be appearing on September 17. “We are particularly pleased by the fact that artists have acknowledged our formal and thematic independence. David Bailey, Peter Saville, and Nick Knight, among others, have already committed to contributing to the second edition, whose theme is Color!”
UPON PAPER magazine is part of a concept based on three pillars: Together, they form an innovative platform for a dialogue with artists working in every art form, as well as photographers, designers, architects, and art lovers around the world. Thus, the magazine is complemented by the UPON PAPER space in Berlin (where the current exhibition of the photographer Niall O’Brien can still be seen until July 28) and the online platform www.uponpaper.com.
See our video on the UPON PAPER project:
Have a look into the growing Community of Upon Paper of Facebook oder Twitter.
Press contact: artpress -Ute Weingarten l Elisabethkirchstraße 15 l 10115 Berlin (Germany) – Tel.: +49-(0)30-21961843 l E-Mail:artpress@uteweingarten.de l www.artpress-uteweingarten.de
