Destig Magazine

DESTIG 2019 AWARD WINNERS & 100 BEST ARTISTS FOR 2020.

Details of the issues released:

“We had the honour of working closely with 3 respected art critics who are readers and big supporters of DESTIG. Some of them have written in the magazine in the past. The selection panel dedicated three full weeks to making the selections – we paid them for their services but they did go above and beyond any expectations.”

“We shortlisted 100 artists that have been covered across all DESTIG channels in 2019 (mainly drawn from the magazine and also our Artists of the Week series). This list was given to the selection panel along with bios on each artist and links to their coverage in DESTIG and their websites.”

• We provided the panel with a list of categories (a few categories were ours to decide – mainly the Hall of Fame, and Stars of the Year) The judges were mandated to select one winner a day per category.

• The selections for each category was collaboratively made by the judges. Some categories were really hard for them to decide... for example: The USA Categories sometimes had over 30 artists to select from ... and generally there are never any slouches. The judges made individual shortlists and compared, everyday they had a conference call and arrived at a winner for each category.

• The judges also decided the running order for the TOP 100. We made a proviso – Artists of the Week had to come last, followed by Artists we interviewed earlier last year, and the top end of the list had to be the most recent artists in the magazine. Aside from that proviso, they selected the running order based. This was necessary because the artist that have been on DESTIG longer have had a longer amount of exposure so this balancing is necessary to give the newer artists some spotlight.

• It may raise the question why would an artist be at the top end of the list and not a category winner – this is because the selection criteria is very different. For the categories, there were no provisos – if an artist qualified for the category then they went into the selection pool so the competition was ridiculously strong in some cases. The top 100 is based on feeling and emotion with a little bit of a critical eye whereas the categories are pretty tough in evaluations.

Mike Walters, Editor