Who are we kidding, we all love winning! Didn’t we all have at least one dream at uni of wrapping our hands around a Yellow Pencil and making an emotional speech thanking our mother and our pet guinea pig for their support?! Yeh maybe that’s just me but one thing is for sure… it’s awards season!

The Pentwards will kick off our run of trophy handing with the ceremony taking place in Paris as we speak. Focused on packaging design, the awards always highlight a create mix of internationally effective packaging design from around the globe. Closely followed and in the opposite hemisphere will be the national New Zealand design awards, Best Awards. Always hotly anticipated this years nominations  show strong contenders across the board, my picks being from the small scale identity sector. And last but by no mean’s least we have the Cardiff Design Festival awards on Saturday. Guest judges there include The Allotment’s Michael Smith, Lynda Relph-Knight (former Design Week editor), Glenn Tutsell (The Brand Union) and David Worthington (Media Square), amongst others (read about last year’s here).

Look out for our upcoming reports and observations on all three and in the meantime whet your whistle with a selection of previous winners and current nominations. Good luck to everyone involved, have a sherry for us!