Hasta La Ideas

Like your nerdy nephew, the American Society of Magazine Editors just can’t get enough of Wired and war photography. After collecting 2009 National Magazine Awards for general excellence in the 500,000 to 1,000,000 circulation category and best magazine section (for its “highly browseable, information-packed” Start department), Wired again won the Ellie for design, triumphing over Bon Appétit, Good, GQ, and New York. The magazine’s design, masterminded by creative director Scott Dadich and design director Wyatt Mitchell, also won last year. Meanwhile, Platon‘s New Yorker photo portfolio of veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan bested the visual feasts of Bon Appétit and Gourmet as well as Bruce Weber‘s take on the big easy for W.

Meanwhile, it was déjà vu all over again in the photojournalism category, snapped up (for the second consecutive year) by National Geographic, this time for a piece that asked the age-old question “Who Murdered the Virunga Gorillas?” photographed by Brent Stirton with text by Mark Jenkins. But there was one surprise: in its first ever win in the photography category, GQ was lauded for “captur[ing] the essence of a person, an idea, and even a product within the broad range of celebrity portraiture, fashion, reportage, style, and humor.”