Dubai: Design is a word that usually brings to mind art and beauty. “Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works,” Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder, once said.
And that is at the core of everything that Gulf News does — functional, useful, value-added work that looks good. This was amply recognised at the recent 15th Asian Media Awards (AMA) that focused on publishers from the Middle East and Asia.
The newspaper won two bronze awards in the categories of Overall Newspaper Design and Best in Editorial Content, which was for the specially designed package on the UAE Martyrs.
It was hosted in Manila, Philippines, by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) on March 30.
The other top winners at the event included Singapore Press Holdings (Singapore), The New Straits Times (Malaysia) and The South China Morning Post (Hong Kong).
As per the WAN-Ifra website, “No less than 20 judges from international media companies evaluated the AMA entries in the past months in order to select the 39 awards winners …. Judges included notably the World Press Photo Award winners Bill Frakes and Ian Grarup, former National Geographic Art Director Juan Velasco, the Evening Standard’s managing editor, Doug Wills and The Age’s editor in chief, Andrew Holden.”
Design Editor S.M. Arshad, who was in Philippines to receive the award on behalf of the newspaper felt that it was, once again, recognition of a great team effort.
He said: “To me, team work is the key to our success where all editorial sections come together as one to bring out special news packages for our readers on a daily basis. We know our readers enjoy special news packages whether they are strong news, entertainment, sports or politics, and this is what keeps us going.”
Design Director Miguel Angel Gomez added: “Our goal is to use design as a tool to make readers experience across the newspaper memorable and worth to be repeated every day.”
