Lois likes the National Magazine Award, a replica of an Alexander Calder stabile. Given by the American Society of Magazine Editors, the “Ellie” (as it is familiarly known, due to its resemblance to an elephant) is hefty, sharp-edged, difficult to grasp, and quite large, commanding a substantial “footprint” on the desk of its recipients ... but “getting a Calder is hot stuff,” says Lois.

In 1972, as the president of the New York Art Directors Club, Lois started the Art Directors Hall of Fame. He and Gene Federico collaborated on designing an award of two sterling silver shapes that . t together to form a sculptural A and D. Lois also designed the well-known One Club Creative Hall of Fame Award, a thick, short pencil sharpened to a point at both ends.

Though MTV’s “moonman” Video Music Award was based on Lois’ groundbreaking “I Want My MTV” campaign, he did not design the award itself.

Lois’ irreverent humor is evident in another award he designed: “I named it the DiRoNA, an acronym for their unwieldy corporate name [Distinguished Restaurants of North America]. In an homage to the sculptor Elie Nadelman, I depicted a Nadelman-like profile, sublimely munching a gourmet meal from one of the 300 restaurants who still proudly display it.”

Milton Glaser has designed a number of awards, most recently the Juilliard Medal, the Theater for a New Audience Medal, and the New York Post Liberty Medal. Of course, he has received many awards—though he has found that not all are worth keeping. One he received from the Design & Culture Design Alliance “was so ugly I threw it away … it was a piece of dreck,” he says. (It was rescued from the trash by Mirko Ilic´, who asked Glaser if he could keep it. The two have design offices in the same building.)

Glaser says, “Despite the fact that Oscar is a terrible sculpture —a male of questionable virility—it has become the prototype for all awards.” Glaser admits that his taste in awards is driven by the fact that “I am a storyteller, driven by narrative.” His favorites are the St. Gaudens Medal (designed by the sculptor Augustus St. Gaudens and awarded by Cooper Union), the AIGA Medal, and the Society of Illustrators Medal, depicting a buffalo, all of which were designed 50 to 60 years ago. “That probably makes me sound like an old curmudgeon,” notes Glaser, “although that is an appellation with which I am becoming increasingly comfortable.”

One of the most beautiful design awards is the one William Drenttel designed in 1999 for the Smithsonian National Design Museum, the National Design Award Trophy. “Conceptually,” Drenttel says, “it is an award which cuts across all design professions, so it starts with the graphic and typographic symbol of an asterisk and takes that shape into 3D form, representing industrial design.” The trophy also alludes to the role of technology in design, since it is created from the hardest man-made material, silicon carbide. “So many design awards are transitory,” says Drenttel. “We wanted this award to last and to become a permanent part of the identity of the museum.”

The award weighs exactly 2 lbs., and is 9.5 inches high. “We also wanted this object to be holdable and tactile,” Drenttel says. He recounts that “when industrial designer Eva Zeisel, who is almost 100 years old, was presented with this award last year, she couldn’t stop fondling it … to make an object that another designer wants to fondle is very satisfying.”

Whether the qualities that are desirable in an award include “fondleability” along with conceptual clarity, enduring elegance, and sculptural beauty, perhaps we need to have an Award Award … and may the best award win.