Design winner Charlie McKay learned the trade by pestering more experienced people at Wanganui's Tearaway magazine to show him their tricks. He also credits growing up in a creative family for the talent which brought him and Tearaway a win and two finalist positions at the New Zealand Magazine Awards onFriday night. One of his designs won Cover of the Year in the Lifestyle category, and Mr McKay was also a Designer of the Year finalist and had a lot of input into Tearaway's Website of the Year finalist position. He wasn't at the awards ceremony in Auckland and said he got the happy news in a text message from Tearaway chief executive officer Sue Pepperell, who was there. He knew the magazine and Wellington design firm The Church had entered his work, but he hadn't had high hopes of winning. He said he grew up in a household where photographer Leigh Mitchell-Anyon and his own mother, Marie McKay, were interested in the arts. He started working at Tearaway after school when he was 13. "I pestered the designers to show me how to do things and then I got into the field professionally because I got 84 percent in Bursary art design. I started getting paid to do part-time design work in the second half of my 7th Form year." In 2003 he was employed full-time by Tearaway as a designer and web co-ordinator and said he ended up doing most of the photography as well. In 2004, the design side of the magazine moved to Wellington, and he was its designer there. This year he was at Whanganui Ucol studying computer graphic design, and doing some freelance work. "I thought I'd gone as far as I could go as an untrained designer with no formal qualifications." He wanted to stay with print and online design because publication, photography and typography were his favourite areas. He anticipated graduating with a bachelor degree in 2006. After that he would like to set up a design incubator that would keep young designers from the polytech in Wanganui by providing them with a collective work space and the means to get their work known. He believed Wanganui's future was in the creative industries. "Wanganui has got no thriving industry, university, railroad or port, so it needs creativity, and it has got that."
