Despite competition from about 1,300 British Isles regional papers, it emerged victorious in two categories at the Newspaper Society’s Advertising and Digital Media Awards 2007, held at The Brewery in London.
Senior graphic designer Andrea Guilbert celebrated her first anniversary working for the company with first prize for recruitment advertisement of the year.
Her creation, which depicted a bag of fresh blood advertising the need to expand the Guernsey Press’s bank of design staff, was striking and compelling enough to win the award, said GP advertisement director Antony Brun.
The newspaper also emerged victorious in the best series of ads of the year category, as well as being nominated for classified section of the year.
‘These prestigious awards honour the publishers and staff in the local media advertising industry whose hard work and creativity have shone through as exceptional, providing fantastic examples that prove advertising in the local media really works,’ said Mr Brun.
‘The Newspaper Society commented that the standard was incredibly high this year and the Guernsey Press was very pleased to have been shortlisted,’ he said.
‘To beat off 1,300 newspapers was a major achievement.’
Mrs Guilbert had praise for her colleagues at the Guernsey Press Art Studio, which provides designs for companies wishing to advertise in the newspaper and was launched when she joined the company.
‘I think that winning the awards was down to teamwork,’ said Mrs Guilbert. ‘If you have an idea and you don’t get the OK, it doesn’t always go through.’
Mr Brun had further praise for the senior designer.
‘Andrea has provided fresh ideas and the style she’s developed is excellent for the newspaper,’ he said.
So what next for the department?
‘We did notice that there were a lot of entries in digital media,’ said Mr Brun.
‘We’re looking at what we can do in that area in the future,’ he said.