For more than 30 years, the American Alliance of Museums has recognized and celebrated print media for its overall design excellence in the AAM Museums Publications Design Competition. In 2021, judges recognized 27 publications in four print categories from 150 submissions from museums and other cultural institutions in the US and internationally across a wide range of disciplines and sizes. Read the full press release and browse the winners below.

The Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design

National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
NGV Triennial 2020
Designed by: Dirk Hiscock assisted by Thomas Deverall and Karina Soraya

Exhibition Catalogues

First Prize

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, DC
Alexander von Humboldt: Art, Nature, and Culture
Designed by: Karen Siatras, Denise Arnot, Helen McNiell
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Second Prize

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco, CA
Tauba Auerbach  — S ˅ Z
Designed by: Tauba Auerbach with David Reinfurt
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Honorable Mention

Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago, IL
El Greco: Ambition and Defiance
Designed by: Fold Four, Inc.
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Asian Art Museum
San Francisco, CA
teamLab: Continuity
Designed by: Martin Venezky of Martin Venezky’s Appetite Engineers
Institutional budget more than $1 million

National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
TIWI: Art & Artists
Designed by: Thomas Deverall
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Washington, DC
¡Printing the Revolution! The Rise and Impact of Chicano
Graphics, 1965 to Now
Designed by: Denise Arnot
Institutional budget more than $1 million

The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, OH
PROOF: Photography in the Era of the Contact Sheet from the Collection of Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz
Designed by: Nesnadny + Schwartz
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Colby College Museum of Art
Waterville, ME
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Durham, NC and Rizzoli Electa, NY
ROY LICHTENSTEIN: HISTORY IN THE MAKING, 1948 -1960
Designed by: Content Object Design Studio/Los Angeles
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Books

First Prize

Getty Research Institute
Los Angeles, CA
Hollywood Arensberg: Avant-Garde Collecting in
Midcentury L.A.
Designed by: Mark Nelson
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston
Charleston, SC
INFRA / ULTRA: The Notebooks of Don ZanFagna
Designed by: Gil Shuler Graphic Design
Institutional budget less than $1 million

Second Prize

Museum of New Mexico Press
Santa Fe, NM
Gus Foster: American Panoramas
Designed by: Michael Motley
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Honorable Mention

Bard Graduate Center
New York, NY
Bard Graduate Center at 25: Decorative Arts, Design History,
Material Culture
Designed by: Laura Grey
Institutional budget more than $1 million

National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
After The Australian Ugliness
Designed by: Dirk Hiscock
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Planting Fields Foundation
Oyster Bay, NY
The Great Bird Blind Debate
Designed by: Jeffrey Jenkins
Institutional budget more than $1 million

The Historic New Orleans Collection
New Orleans, LA
Afro-Creole Poetry in French from Louisiana’s
Radical Civil War-Era Newspapers
Designed by: Nathan Moehlmann, Goosepen Studio & Press
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Newsletters and Calendar of Events

First Prize

Spencer Museum of Art
Lawrence, KS
View, Spring 2021 Issue
Designed by: Jeffrey McKee; Editor: Elizabeth Kanost; Photographer: Ryan Waggoner
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Second Prize

The Media Majlis at Northwestern University in Qatar
Doha, Qatar
Inside the Majlis
Designed by: Lizzie B Design
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Honorable Mention

Bard Graduate Center
New York, NY
Bard Graduate Center Spring 2020
Designed by: Kate DeWitt
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience
Meridian, MS
PLACE Newsletter
Designed by: Paula Chance
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
Hartford, CT
Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art Calendar
Designed by: Wondriska Russo Associates LLC
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Magazines/Scholarly Journals

First Prize

Cincinnati Art Museum
Cincinnati, OH
1881, issue 17
Designed by: Hyperquake
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Second Prize

Rhode Island Historical Society
Providence, RI
Rhode Island History
Designed by: Michael Russem
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Honorable Mention

Indiana University Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art
Bloomington, IN
Schema: Magazine of the Eskenazi Museum of Art at Indiana University
Designed by: Jessie Waymire
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
San Francisco, CA
Fine Arts magazine
Designed by: Benjamin Shaykin
Institutional budget more than $1 million

Hennepin History Museum
Minneapolis, MN
Hennepin History, Vol.79, No.2, 2020
Designed by: Linda Koutsky
Institutional budget less than $1 million

White House Historical Association
Washington DC
White House History Quarterly, Furnishing the White House:
The Decorative Arts Collection
Designed by: Pentagram
Institutional budget less than $1 million