Two Awards…and a Fresh Coat of Paint

Business Jet Traveler has picked up two more editorial prizes—our 24^th and 25^th major wins since 2005. This latest recognition comes in the Folio: Eddies and Ozzies, the largest awards competition in magazine publishing, which annually attracts upwards of 2,000 entries.

BJT won for Best Full Issue of a Transportation or Travel Consumer Magazine for our April/May 2014 issue, which included interviews with Sir Richard Branson and NetJets CEO Jordan Hansell. We also took the prize for Best Single Article in a Transportation Consumer Magazine for Margie Goldsmith’s feature on Papua New Guinea, which appeared in our December 2013/January 2014 edition.

We’re not resting on our laurels, as I hope you’ll see from our next issue, which will feature Margie’s terrific interview with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and incorporate BJT’s first major redesign in seven years.

In 2013, when The New Yorker unveiled its own latest redesign, editor David Remnick noted that “we’ve kept the DNA and added some modern elements.” If the magazine fell on the floor and were three feet away, he added, it would still be identifiable to longtime readers.

I could say the same about the version of BJT that we’re introducing in February—though if it were three feet away, you might mistakenly think it was just a little farther. That’s because we’ve shrunk the page size slightly. We did this because we believe the change will make for more attractive layouts and because readers have long requested a more compact, easier-to-hold-and-carry magazine. We’ve also incorporated new typefaces, altered our treatment of features and some departments and made a variety of other changes. 

We hope you like the results. But whatever you think, please let us hear from you.

Meanwhile, our thanks to everyone who helped us to put a fresh coat of paint on BJT, and especially to creative director John Manfredo, who headed the redesign project, and production editor Lysbeth McAleer, who contributed many good ideas and kept us on a smooth track through this time of change. Kudos also to the rest of our first-rate design team: Mona Brown, Thomas Jackson, and John Lewis.