BeanScene wins Best Trade Cover at The Maggies 2014

BeanScene is proud to announce that its April 2014 cover has won the best Business and Trade category at The Maggies Magazine Awards night on 15 October in Sydney.

“I am thrilled and extremely proud to accept this award on behalf of a dedicated team who work tirelessly to create a magazine that not only engages our core readership with relevant and quality content, but also with artistic and visual mediums such as our covers,” says BeanScene Editor Sarah Baker.

“Most importantly, thank you to the esteemed panel of judges who saw the potential in our cover, and to everyone who voted for our magazine and helped us achieve the title of Best Trade Cover of The Year.”

The intention of the April cover of Beanscene was to promote the emergence of coffee cocktails, and the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship that was held at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo in May. BeanScene teamed up with Lavazza Coffee and Nieuw Amsterdam cocktail bar in Victoria to shoot this stunning backlit coffee cocktail. With Melbourne photographer Blake Storey, it took hours to capture this cocktail called the Foggy Nightcap, an original Nieuw Amsterdam creation. It combines dark Venezuelan rum, American whiskey, and grandfather port with chocolate bitters, infused with Lavazza’s Grand Espresso blend and tonka beans in a coffee syphon, poured over dry ice.

This is the first award-winning magazine cover for photographer Blake Storey. “I am blown away and honoured to hear that our cover has won this award. It was a big team effort to come up with the perfect eye-catching cover that represented the theme of coffee-inspired beverages in a creative and artistic way,” says Blake. “I wanted to give the cover a sense of mystery and I’m extremely happy with the final result.”

The Maggies is a national poll to celebrate and award the best magazine covers of the past year. The Maggies recognise covers that resonate most strongly with the general public, encapsulate the passion of the subject matter, capture the spirit of the previous year and provoke the most debate.

This year’s awards received more than 200 entries in 12 categories which were initially shortlisted by a panel of nine esteemed publishing judges. The vote was then opened to the general public over a five-week period. This year more than 75,000 people voted online at themaggies.com.au.

“It was wonderful to see such creativity and so much diversity in the magazine covers we selected. I thought there were some brilliant covers in the running, in a year that presented a consistently high quality. On behalf of the industry, I congratulate the winners, and all the excellent shortlisted publications,” says Australian publishing legend Ita Buttrose, who was Chairperson of the 2014 judging panel.