Scottish Design Awards winners span wide spectrum

This year’s Scottish Design Awards offered an eclectic mix of design work, but entries in the packaging sector were particularly weak, say jurors on the panel.

The Design Grand Prix went to Glasgow-based Graphical House for its witty animation film The Last Laugh History of Swearing, made for BBC Scotland (pictured below, right). Daniel Ibbotson, a partner at Graphical House, was named Scottish Designer of the Year.

Winners were selected from 40 categories, encompassing graphics, branding, product design, digital media, interior design and architecture. Overall, Scottish design consultancies fared well.

Oskar Kron, a designer at Third Eye Design, won Young Scottish Designer of the Year, making it the second year running that one of Third Eye’s design team has received this prestigious award. Third Eye Design also picked up a Corporate Literature award for a West of Scotland Cancer Awareness project on mouth and bowel cancer.

Scottish graphic designer Ian McIlroy won the Lifetime Achievement Award for his overall contribution to the design industry. Studio LR won the Chairman’s Award for Design with its book design for Ideas Leave Objects Standing, published by Platform Projects. Pentagram, Design Bridge and 300million were among some of the non-Scottish winners.

Jeff Kindleysides, principal creative director at Checkland Kindleysides, chaired the design jury panel, which comprised NB Studio creative director Alan Dye, Airside director Alex Maclean, Alison Tomlin, creative partner at Carter Wong Tomlin, Keren House, creative director at Aricot Vert, Graham Shearsby, creative director at Design Bridge, and Richard Buchanan, head of specialism at Corporate Edge.

Tomlin believes that the packaging designs this year were weak and that there were too few entries overall.

‘It was an eclectic mix and the awards did have a very different feel to the other ceremonies that happen south of the border, such as the D&AD Awards. There was some really lovely animation work, but the packaging was weak. It didn’t really represent the best that Scotland has to offer,’ she says.

Dye agrees with the view that the standard for packaging design was not very high, but says that he was ‘impressed’ by the design work submitted for the publications category. Overall, however, he suggests that the designers could up the ante when submitting material.

‘The idea behind design awards should not simply be to recognise and reward excellence. They should also act as a carrot and stick to encourage higher standards and creative aspirations within the industry. So, even while I was impressed by the standard of work, I would say that there is still plenty of room for improvement, right across the board,’ he says.

The call for entries for the 2007 Scottish Design Awards will go out in December.

Selection of winners:

• Design Grand Prix: Graphical House, The Last Laugh History of Swearing, BBC Scotland (Pictured above, right)

• Chairman’s Award for Design: Studio LR, Ideas Leave Objects Standing, Platform Projects

• Scottish Designer of the Year: Daniel Ibbotson, Graphical House

• Young Scottish Designer of the Year: Oskar Kron at Third Eye Design

• Publications: Pentagram, The Myths Series, Canongate

• Corporate Literature: Third Eye Design, Mouth.Bowel, West of Scotland Cancer Awareness

• Annual report: Teviot, Bethany Christian report

• Packaging: Design Bridge, Tennents can, InBev

• Best Use of Illustration: 300million, Advocate promotional book, Tullis Russell

• Best Use of Photography: Tayburn, After The Tsunami, Mercy Corps (Pictured top)