Design Bloggers Conference Hall of Fame Winners

I wanted to send a little shout out to the just announced winners of the first annual Design Bloggers Conference Hall of Fame. First, let me say that I am not actually at the conference. It just didn't fit into my schedule or budget this year. But if you follow the hashtag #dbc2021 on Twitter, you can nearly feel like you're there - you know, without the warm LA weather (warmer than New England, at lease!) and all the hugging and air kissing.

A big congratulations to:

Toronto-based designer Meredith Heron's blog Sashay won best new design blog.

Atlanta based writer Jennifer Boles' The Peak of Chic won for best writing on a design blog.

Seattle based Cassandra Lavalle's blog Coco + Kelley won for best graphics and photography

Arkansas designer Tobi Fairley's blog won for best overall design blog.

Now, not to take away from any of these ladies and their accomplishments - they are all worthy winners - but I have had some thoughts about the entire Hall of Fame concept from the beginning. First off: to me, the concept of a Hall of Fame denotes not only exceptional achievement, but longevity and community service.

For that reason alone, I had voted for Grace Bonney's Design*Sponge for best over all design blog. After all, how can you not choose the person who really was the forefront of personal design blogging? She very nearly created the genre and inspired a thousand other blogs, mine included. Her Biz Ladies Meetups across the country were huge successes and showed that she was as interested in supporting women in business no matter how tiny.

I voted for Holly Becker's Decor8 for best graphics and photography. As with Grace Bonney, Holly has been at the forefront of design blogs, has legions of followers and through her course offerings in design blogging, many new bloggers have been nurtured. Additionally, her blog is very well designed and her own photography has gotten quite good over the years and truly establishes and supports her brand.

In the category of best writing, it was for me a toss up between Patricia Shackelford of Mrs. Blandings and the aforementioned winner Jennifer Boles. As far as I'm concerned no other design bloggers are writers of the same caliber as these ladies. I voted for Patricia simply because I really am in awe of her ability to mash-up a completely unrelated anecdote of her life with a series of beautiful images and somehow it all makes sense. Plus, she's a beautifully spare writer - a quality I certainly lack. Both Jennifer and Patricia have parlayed their writing skills into gigs for House Beautiful and Architectural Digest, respectively, and it's no wonder.

As I said, this is not to disparage the work of the winning bloggers at all. They are all amazing and worthy of accolade. I simply wanted to send a quick shout out to the bloggers whose work I admire and have done for many years. Brava to all!

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