The overall standard of all the special publications I considered was very good.

The many people who take pride in their work should be congratulated

Each product had a great headline and a compelling front page picture.

Every special publication on its own was well finished in a variety of shapes and sizes, from an A4 perfect bound magazine to runs of newspaper special features printed on Norstar 55gsm and newsprint.

Some publications did stand out, printed heatset web or sheetfed offset with the glossy finish.

The quality of picture reproduction overall was very good with skin tones well produced.

Understand some publications are quarterly and some tied annually to events, others are wrapped around a feature event in their district that may have just popped up.

Some publications had many contributors as well as reporting writers while others had little recorded contributors.

One strikingly well laid out publication was the 32-page publication titled “Masters Games”.

The publication was produced in concert with the Port Augusta Masters Games 2025.

The layout was outstanding, extremely clean and the stories about competitors terrific.

That publication stands along side the classic newspaper feature produced by the leader newspaper in the Barrossa for the opening of the Nuriootpa New Logistics hub, another newspaper feature with great personal reads and a good human picture to go with each story.

In regard to advertising layout and content and colors of advertising space some small advertisements in the glossy publications had just too much information in the advertisement and sometimes type was too small to read. Keep an eye on your type size readability, font and leading.

Eyre Magazine had a spectacular front cover and inside and sometimes bold half page advertising space blew away editorial layout. Perhaps that’s the way it should be anyway, the near tabloid publication size is a bold and colorful annual product with good human interest stories.

Production quality of all publications was professional whether they were printed on uncoated stocks cold-set or glossy heat-set.

Judging criteria was also asked to consider how much in-house advertising was created.

Today with the quality of in-house advertising designers and the skills of locals often home grown, advertising creation leads as locals often in print think in ink and not just for publication online.

Publications like the annual River Time the Barossa mag, are great reads and sparkle with life but the three publications that I considered a place in the race for first, second and third were:

1st – The Hills Wanderer summer edition, a free A4 sized magazine, is a long way from a newspaper stable with its clustered pages of advertising then articles, with great photography and printing. A perfect bound publication with the luxury of white space and great consistent design throughout.

The explanation of the publication by the Courier editor at Mt Barker, Elisa Rose, was thoughtful and helpful for the judge making a decision. As were other contributors notes on their entries it helps place their publication in their market place.

2nd place – was the Yorke Peninsula Times official souvenir guide for the Yorke Peninsula Field days. This 96 page publication is a very well printed heatset web offset or offset. The production of colour pictures and general printing was first class. As the official annual event guide to the oldest field days in Australia the Yorke Peninsula Times crew can be proud of a publication created at home but printed off site.

Plenty of reading in detail, site map and exhibitor details and a print run of 15,000.

3rd place – this year goes to Ayre Magazine, Port Lincoln, the Project Manager Stacey Lawrie and her big team.

The near tabloid size annual publication had great pictures, hard hitting advertising in some places and interesting people stories of people on the Eyre Peninsula.

All publications I looked at were generally a great read for a local or visitor alike.

Congratulations to this year’s place getters and all who bothered to enter.

R.D (Bob) Yeates

Printer & Publisher

Bairnsdale, Victoria.