August 2008
AIGA and the Winterhouse Institute announce the recipients of the third annual Winterhouse Awards for Design Writing & Criticism: 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, this year’s jury made a surprise decision to recognize two exceptional students to both receive Education Awards. The three awards will be presented at the fifth annual AIGA Design Legends Gala on September 18, 2008, in New York City.
The Writing Award—open to writers, critics, scholars, historians, journalists and designers, in the amount of $10,000 (doubling the $5,000 awarded in prior years)—was awarded to David Barringer, for his three submissions: “Raining on Evolution’s Parade,” “The Names in the Case” and “American Mutt Barks in the Yard.”
David Barringer grew up in Michigan and now lives in North Carolina. He is the author of the novels American Home Life (2007) and Johnny Red (2005); the fiction collections Twisted Fun (2006) and We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things (2003); and the book of design criticism American Mutt Barks in the Yard (Émigré, 2005). He has written for Émigré, I.D., Eye, Voice: AIGA Journal of Design, Details, Mademoiselle, The American Prospect, Nerve.com, The Detroit Free Press, the ABA Journal and many others.
Two Education Awards—open to high school, undergraduate or graduate students whose use of writing, in the interest of making visual work or scholarship or cultural observation, demonstrates extraordinary originality and promise, in the amount of $1,000 each—were awarded to Annie Simpson, for her submission, “FIRE,” and to Joshua Yaffa, for his submission, “The Road to Clarity.”
Annie Simpson recently completed her MA in Histories and Theories at the Architectural Association. She received her BA in 2001 from Columbia University, where she studied comparative literature and religion. After graduating, she freelanced as a ghostwriter, a researcher and a legal assistant for various writers, artists and political activists. Presently, she lives in Chicago, where she works on special projects at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Joshua Yaffa is a freelance writer who lives in Brooklyn. In addition to “The Road to Clarity,” his story about the highway typeface Clearview published in The New York Times Magazine, he is a frequent contributor to other sections of The New York Times, and has also written for Good magazine, The Forward and McSweeney’s online. He grew up in San Diego, spent several years in Moscow, and recently completed graduate degrees in journalism and international affairs at Columbia University.
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,” notes 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 next year’s awards will be accepted starting in March 2009.
More than 600 leaders of design, creative, business and education organizations from around the world are expected to attend the glamorous Design Legends Gala, which benefits the ongoing celebration of design excellence. Funds raised at this year’s Gala help support the AIGA American Design Archives, the Worldstudio AIGA Scholarship program, AIGA’s Diversity Archive and the Legacy endowment to secure the future of the organization. Gala tickets and tables may be purchased online.
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