I found out a few hours ago and this news needed some time to sink in. I still can't believe that I'm posting this amazing news... UPPERCASE is one of 16 finalists in the annual Society of Publication Designers' Magazine of the Year category!!! And what a category! To be listed along with such iconic publications as The New York Times Magazine, Bon Appetit, Wired, GQ, Esquire, and Time... and well-respected award-winning art directors such as Fred Woodward, Deb Bishop, Matthew Lenning, Janet Froelich and Scott Dadich... to be included amongst these people and publications is certainly the high point in my career as a designer and more than I could have expected for a small, year-old, independent magazine from Western Canada.

Thank you to the panel of judges who took time to discover our relatively unknown magazine and decided to recognize it in such a manner.

A heartfelt thank you to editor-at-large Deidre Martin and to Jenny Tzanakos and my husband, Glen Dresser. And to our generous contributors, photographers and illustrators and other enthusiastic collaborators: thank you for sharing your talents and helping to make UPPERCASE a magazine with outstanding content and an inspiring publication to design. Thank you to our subscribers and stockists for keeping us going!

From the SPD.org website:

Magazine of the Year is the highest annual award SPD grants. It is given to the art director whose magazine demonstrates the most effective and imaginative use of design, typography, illustration and photography to promote the editorial message. The category is judged entirely by itself during the first day of judging, as the jury pores over three different issues from each entry in order to get a sense of both the highest high points and the steady consistencies the magazine the readers rely upon. Those scores, from the entire jury, created this pool of finalists for the jury to sift through again during the final round of judging on day three.

The sixteen finalists we share here are representative of this year's strong and vibrant entries in the category, showing a wide and varied range of editorial challenges and solutions. Each is now officially a Merit winner for Magazine of the Year; from these sixteen we will announce the Magazine of the Year Medal Finalists on Friday, February 12th (this Friday! check back soon!) along with all the other Print Medal Finalists (so really: check back Friday for the FULL LIST OF PRINT FINALISTS ON THE SITE).

Our heartiest congratulations to each of these magazines and their creative teams, representing the best of the field from 2009, presented here in no special order other than alphabetical because we're like that:

Blender
Creative Director: Dirk Barnett
Director of Photography: David Carthas

Bon Appétit
Design Director: Matthew Lenning

Cookie
Design Director: Kirby Rodriguez
Art Directors: Alex Grossman, Kristina DiMatteo
Director of Photography: Darrick Harris

ESPN The Magazine
Creative Director: Siung Tjia
Director of Photography: Catriona Ni Aolain

Esquire
Design Director: David Curcurito
Director of Photography: Michael Norseng

GQ
Design Director: Fred Woodward
Director of Photography: Dora Somosi

More
Creative Director: Deb Bishop
Director of Photography: Stacey Baker

New York
Design Director: Chris Dixon
Director of Photography: Jody Quon

The New York Times Magazine
Design Director: Arem Duplessis
Deputy Art Director: Gail Bichler
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan

Real Simple
Creative Director: Janet Froelich
Design Directors: Ellene Wundrok, Cybele Grandjean
Photo Director: Casey Tierney

T, The New York Times Style Magazine
Creative Director: David Sebbah
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan

Time
Art Director: Arthur Hochstein
Director of Photography: Kira Pollack

Uppercase
Creative Director: Janine Vangool

W
Design Director: Edward Leida
Art Director: Nathalie Kirsheh

Wired
Creative Director: Scott Dadich
Design Director: Wyatt Mitchell

Wired (Italy)
Art Director: David Moretti
Photo Editor: Francesca Morosini