The recipients of the Society for News Design Lifetime Achievement Awards in 2014 are Hans Peter Janisch and Rodrigo Sánchez. The awards were presented at SND’s annual workshop in Frankfurt, Germany in September. Twenty-two other honorees have received the award, which originated in 1993.
Janisch, a newspaper designer and consultant known for his work in helping to establish SND’s reach internationally, was introduced by Stefan Knapp, design consultant and coordinator of the Frankfurt workshop.
Sánchez, art director of La Luna de Metrópoli, a weekly supplement of the Spanish newspaper, El Mundo in Madrid, is known for his spectacular cover designs. He was introduced by Javier Errea, principal of Errea Comunicación, a news design studio based in Pamplona, Spain.
Check out the wonderful testimonials presented at the awards ceremony for Janisch and Sánchez.
Introductory remarks from Stefan Knapp, as he made the presentation to Hans Peter:
“It is an honor and a joy to give this laudatory speech in honor of
Hans Peter tonight. It is a further milestone on our long journey together.
Hans Peter and I have known each other since 1983. For 31 years!
We studied together and – off the record – I’d like to tell you that it was my fault that Hans Peter found himself in the newspaper business. At that time the subject press design was offered by our professor Hans F. Krebs and luckily Hans Peter accepted my advice to study this really good subject.
Hans Peter has always been a business man and was already successful at his work while he studied. Having graduated, he started his career as newspaper designer at the Mainzer Allgemeinen Zeitung and went into business for himself shortly after. A great career which lead him to many different countries around the world … as you can see on the samples.
Hans Peter brought me into the SND, in which he was a member of at the time. In 1990 we visited the SND Congress in San Francisco and in 1991 the one in Boston together.
He always talked about the fact that we in Germany, Switzerland and Austria should have our own German-speaking section within the SND.
In 1999 the dream come true. The SND German-speaking section was born and Hans Peter was its first regional director, from 1999 until 2004.
In 2004 he was appointed to the SND board as international director – a position which he held until 2012.
During his time the Society of News Design gave itself an international direction, which brought us together with creative colleagues from all over the world.
Hans Peter is a passionate hunter, a real sportsman and for me above all a good friend.
I am very happy that the SND honours his work today … Congratulations, lieber Hans Peter.”
Introductory remarks from Javier Errea, as he made the presentation to Rodrigo:
“We all know that Rodrigo is a genius. In my opinion, he is the best news designer in Spain and maybe one of the best current news designers in the World. It is almost impossible to find such a talented, intelligent, quick-decision-made man, stick-to-the-news guy working for so many consecutive years.
Metropoli—with its covers—is a superb example of an always fresh look, wide range of languages, extensive knowledge of the graphic design history. You can always find intelligent connections to literature, movies, art…
But most importantly Rodrigo is a humble guy and even better friend than designer. So that you can imagine how good friend and fantastic person he is!
Nevertheless, Rodrigo has also some problems. … First is not that important. He doesn’t know how to draw. Could you imagine! He is able to draw hardly nothing. Ja, ja, ja.
Second, it is a real problem. Rodrigo is a strong supporter of Real Madrid. This is a huge problem. What he doesn’t realize is that he is not the Cristiano Ronaldo but the Lionel Messi of news design!
Congratulations, my friend. You deserve this award.”