The 35th annual National Magazine Awards were handed out last night at The Carlu and, in our inaugural year, we clearly made a good first impression on the judges. The Grid was called up to the podium a total of four times last night: our tireless Art Director Vanessa Wyse took home three gold-medal awards herself for our May 19, 2011 “Got Spunk?” issue (for Best Magazine Cover, Art Direction for a Single Magazine Article, and Art Direction for an Entire Issue), and we received another gold in the Editorial Package category for our May 12, 2011 Chef’s Guide to Toronto (which tied with Toronto Life‘s Digital Issue).

To top it off, we also earned silver-award placements for Single Service Article Package (for the aforementioned Chef’s Guide) and in the Words & Pictures category (for our Aug. 11, 2011, “A day in the life of the waterfront” feature), bringing our total award tally to six, the second-highest take of the night. (Kudos to The Walrus for their impressive 12-award haul.) Alas, they don’t yet give out awards for Most Bitchin’ Karaoke After-Party at BMB on Bloor, so these will have to do for now.

For more info on last night’s winners, check the official NMAs blog.

It’s been almost one full year since our awesome team came together to celebrate the debut issue of The Grid. Since then, it’s been a whirlwind of non-stop action: In roughly 51 weeks, we’ve seen countless production meetings, seemingly endless late nights, and we’ve even been named one of the best-designed publications in the world.

Today, we were thrilled to hear that The Grid received a grand total of 17 National Magazine Award nominations. We were recognized in 11 different categories for our design and editorial content, and we are one of three candidates up for Magazine of the Year (Digital).

Perhaps most encouraging were the indicators that we were been producing great work right out of the gate: We received nominations for almost every aspect of our first two features, A Chef’s Guide to Toronto and Got Spunk? (a cover story on sperm donation in Canada), with multiple noms in categories spanning best editorial package, cover design, photography, and art direction.

We were also recognized for our unwavering focus on covering the city, from our floating survey of Toronto’s waterfront to Edward Keenan’s weekly take on local news and politics to our investigation of Toronto’s fierce sports media battle between TSN and Rogers Sportsnet.

Here’s a list of all our nominations (in bold), with links to the relevant content. Thank you to all our readers—we’re really looking forward to Year Two!

Magazine of the Year (Digital)

thegridto.com

Art Direction for an Entire Issue

Vanessa Wyse:

May 12: A Chef’s Guide to Toronto

May 19: Got Spunk?

October 27: An oral history of The Mad Hatter

November 24: Toronto’s crazy-festive winter cocktails

Art Direction for a Single Magazine Article

A Chef’s Guide to Toronto
Adam Cholewa, Vanessa Wyse

Down for the Count
Vanessa Wyse

A Day In the Life of Toronto’s Waterfront
Vanessa Wyse

Magazine Covers

Beyond Gay
Vanessa Wyse

Got Spunk?
Vanessa Wyse

Single Service Article Package

A Chef’s Guide to Toronto
Carley Fortune, Karon Liu, Vanessa Wyse, Mark Zibert, Diana Monge, Michael Crichton, Finn O’Hara, David Fielding, Lianne George, Jacob Rutka, David Sax

Editorial Package

A Chef’s Guide to Toronto
Carley Fortune, Karon Liu, David Fielding, Lianne George, Jacob Rutka, David Sax

Columns

Notebook
Edward Keenan

Health & Medicine

Down for the Count
Danielle Groen

Sports & Recreation

Numbers Game
Rob Duffy

Creative Photography

Got Spunk?
Matthew Barnes

Words & Pictures

Toronto’s Waterfront Is…
Lara Zarum, Jacqueline Perlin, Vanessa Wyse, Nikki Ormerod, Diana Monge, Nana Arbova, Laas Turnbull