JUDGES

Eric is an experienced Creative Director who manages creative agency White Light Media. He is a former design lead at The Scotsman newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald and The List magazine and has a skilled insight into making publications that stand out both in print and online. Eric leads the team at White Light Media who specialise in helping brands shape and deliver their comms strategies.

Andy Cowles is the founder of Cowles Media, a heavyweight design consultancy but without the smoke, mirrors, and mad expense. He’s a Guardian Masterclass trainer and lecturer at UAL, Cardiff and Nottingham Trent universities. Andy has won many design awards, including the UK's most prestigious, the BSME Mark Boxer Award.

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An experienced Digital Director, Amy is currently Executive Digital Editor for BBC News. She leads the delivery of BBC News Digital’s strategies to create double digit growth of weekly users, value for the licence fee payer and to embed digital skills across BBC News to make sure the best of our journalism is commissioned and produced for digital audiences by talented, high performing multidisciplinary teams.

Prior to working at the BBC Amy was Delivery Director for the Government Digital Service where she was responsible for delivering government's key digital products and services in addition to leading the agile delivery profession and community across government.

Amy is passionate about delivering transformational user-centric public services that are both of the people and for the people. Creating diverse and inclusive teams and a healthy and empathetic working culture is core to all that Amy does.

Avril Gray is an Associate Professor, Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and Programme Leader of Postgraduate Publishing at Edinburgh Napier University, where she led the programme to successful accreditation – the first and only UK Publishing degree to achieve this distinction. Edinburgh Napier is currently the top university for Journalism and Publishing in the UK (Guardian League Tables). Avril established the first Magazine Publishing postgraduate degree in Scotland, and is now Head of Merchiston Publishing. Avril was on the Executive Committee of the Association for Publishing Education for over 6 years (re-elected), sits on a national industry Board and is a Trustee for two educational charities. Avril has over 20 years’ experience in the publishing industry, during which time she was M.D. of the award-winning S.C.P. Publishers Ltd and founder of the first children’s book publisher in Scotland. Her professional work now forms part of the prestigious – and exclusive – John Murray Archive and Publishers’ Collections at the National Library of Scotland.

Sally Hampton is a Consumer Magazines Publisher with DC Thomson Media. She oversees a diverse portfolio of UK and Scottish interest magazine brands. Her role involves identifying opportunities to grow existing DC Thomson Media titles through innovation and expansion – and launching new products across a variety of platforms. Most recently, she was a key member of the team that delivered Platinum magazine, one of the biggest launches in consumer magazines in recent times.

About Simon Hill ...

Simon is a designer and photographer. As Managing (and Creative) Director of JANVS | VIDAR (the trading name of VIDAR Media Group), he is responsible for the design of over 300 museums, galleries and themed attractions in the UK, Scandinavia and South East Asia. As a designer, Simon is winner of many awards including Museum of the Year, Best European Attraction and Global Attraction of the Year. For over 20 years he has been Chair of an international membership organisation representing professional illustrators, artists and designers. Simon is also an award-winning professional editorial photographer, the winner of the International Art Portrait Award (2017), BIPP Professional Photographer of the Year (2019) and is President of the Royal Photographic Society (2021-2023). Simon's work has appeared in National Geographic, Sunday Times Magazine, and The Observer Magazine plus many other publications. As a professional qualified member of the Chartered Society of Designers, Simon specialises in graphic design for print and online media.

About VIDAR Media Group ...

JANVS Design was formed in 1983 as a specialist provider of design services to the cultural heritage sector. Incorporating in 1997, ten years later the practice merged with VIDAR Media to become one of the UK's leading designers of award winning museums, galleries and heritage attractions. Today, with offices in the UK and Ireland, JANVS | VIDAR can provide either a design-only or a turnkey design-and-build service. We maintain the highest level of professional accreditation: the practice is a Corporate Member of the Museums Association and every member of our interpretative design team (except Oscar!) is a professionally qualified Member or Fellow of either the Chartered Society of Designers (CSD) or the Society of Illustrators Artists and Designers (SIAD). With over 35 years of experience and over 350 projects to its credit, JANVS | VIDAR has won many regional, national and international awards for its cultural heritage projects. These include Museum of the Year, Best Heritage Attraction, Most Innovative Heritage Project, the HLF Renaissance Award and the prestigious European Tourist Attraction of the Year, at the World Tourism Awards 2017, for Fortress Spike Island in the Republic of Ireland. From 2007, VIDAR Media Publishing has offered a range of design and print services to its heritage clients and others. The range of publications includes souvenir guide books, commemorative books, activity leaflets, self-guide trail maps, plans and posters.

Peter is co-host of the Media Voices podcast, discussing the business of media every week and interviewing senior publishing executives. He writes regularly about publishing, with bylines in The News Statesman, The Drum and What's New InPublishing. Peter is also co-founder of the Publisher Podcast Awards, recognising leading podcasters from the world of magazines and newspapers.

"Margaret developed and leads the journalism programmes at the University of the West of Scotland after having had a career in magazine journalism. She also chairs the Association for Journalism UK, an organisation that comprises the universities that teach journalism and supports the development of teaching and research in the field. "

If you live in Scotland you will probably have received one of the magazines that John’s team write, edit, design and publish. Based in Glasgow, John runs a team that publish digital content, print magazines, podcasts and virtual events on behalf of brands including the National Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland, Royal British Legion Scotland, Petplan, Royal Photographic Society, Whale and Dolphin Conservation, Friends of the Earth, The Arts Society and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.

Sian Meades-Williams is a cofounder of the PPA-award winning newsletter publishing company Gadabout Publishing, which publishes the weekly lifestyle newsletter Tigers Are Better Looking. She's also founder of the popular media industry newsletter Freelance Writing Jobs, and her book about freelancing – The Pyjama Myth – is out in 2022.

Adrian Newton joined New Scientist in 2018 to initially lead the company’s growing events business. In 2020 his remit extended to encompass the management of all commercial activity for the business.

His career started in publishing in the late 90s at the Builder Group. Following the business’ acquisition by UBM, he rose to the position of Publisher before becoming Director of a portfolio that encompassed magazines and large-scale events. Prior to joining New Scientist his focus had been predominately on events, launching and developing numerous exhibitions, conferences and festivals around the globe. He was personally responsible for devising and launching London Tech Week which has become Europe’s largest city-wide festival of technology.

Arusa Qureshi is a writer and editor based in Edinburgh, and a passionate advocate for diversity and accessibility within arts and culture. She is the former Editor of The List and writes mostly about music, most recently Flip the Script – a book about women in UK hip hop, published by 404 Ink. Her work has appeared in Bella Caledonia, Clash, The Guardian, GoldFlakePaint, Time Out and more. She is also on the board of the Scottish Music Centre and in the Scottish Music Industry Association’s Advisory Group.

A former head of design at The Scotsman newspaper, Ross has a career spanning 23 years in the media and publishing sectors.

He is currently engaging the biggest banking names in the world, producing cutting-edge digital creative and leading the design studio at content marketing agency Editions.

Maggie Swinburne is the brand extension editor on My Weekly responsible for the Specials and My Weekly Pocket Novels, and she is also My Weekly’s Cookery Editor; therefore she has a wide remit which involves reading romances, and tasting, testing, devising and dreaming about delicious food! During her career she has worked on a range of publications including Family Circle (back in the day!), Here’s Health and magazines for the Armed Forces in a variety of roles.

Mitya is a newspaper and magazine journalist with more than 15 years’ experience on local, regional and national titles in the UK and Middle East. She also has extensive content writing experience, covering everything from travel insurance to hyperloop transport, and has been a regular on BBC Radio Scotland. Mitya is currently the Celebrity Editor at My Weekly magazine, commissioning and writing lovely things about some the nation’s favourite stars.

Rosamund West started her career in visual arts before moving into publishing via arts criticism. She has been editor-in-chief of The Skinny magazine / Radge Media since 2010, a position which offers a constant cycle of new opportunities and challenges, particularly in the times of COVID. She has worked on a wide array of projects from new publication launches in the UK and Australia to exhibitions, digital projects and live events.

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