Lena Dunham, Vice and Google honoured in last night’s Webby awards

The 20th annual Webby awards took place last night, honouring “excellence on the internet” across websites, advertising and media, online film and video, mobile sites and apps, and social media.

In the Websites section, National Geographic’s The Climate Change Issue won the Best Home/Welcome Page, while BBCAmerica won the People’s Voice award for the same category. Shortlisted were Condé Nast Traveler, SFCD and Green Man 2016, which was designed by London agency Lovers.

Falter’s Inferno by Wild won the Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics, shortlisted alongside Giphy, which won the People’s Voice award; Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies Classroom by Weta; Suisse Mania by Hinderling Volkart AG; and Because Recollection by 84.Paris.

Vice.com won the Cultural Blog/Website category, shortlisted alongside Nowness, Polygraph, Concrete Playground by Canvas Group and Jazz at Lincoln Center. It’s Nice That was selected as an Official Honoree in this category.

The New York Times’ site NYT Voyages won the prize for Best Use of Photography; and Virgin America’s site by Work & Co won Best User Experience.

Spotify Taste Rewind by Razorfish New York/Stink Digital won Best Visual Design – Aesthetic; while Google Frightgeist by Google Creative Lab won Best Visual Design – Function.

In Advertising & Media, Aesop – Taxonomy of Design by Pollen won Art Direction; and Google Spotlight Stories’ Help by The Mill won Best Use of Animation or Motion Graphics.

Overall, Spotify and Vice Media each won a total of 13 awards, with National Geographic, The New York Times, TED, Google, HBO and The National Film Board of Canada also won multiple prizes.

Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner won a New Founders of the Year special achievement award for Lenny Letter, while other honorees included Jessica Alba for Entrepreneur of the Year and The Onion for Lifetime Achievement. R/GA won Agency of the Year, and Black Lives Matter won Social Movement of the Year. Kara Swisher presented the first Break the Internet award to Kim Kardashian West for the “bold and creative ways” she has used the internet, social media, apps and video.

This year nearly 13,000 entries were submitted from over 70 countries.