How the Shine School Media Awards 2025 gained royal approval

I stood watching Queen Camilla walk through the room, greeting everyone in turn. Each person she met had a carefully rehearsed story to tell, their own point to get across. Amid all of that, all of us had to remember the nod of the head or bob of knee, the proper way of saying hello. It was extraordinary to feel the atmosphere change completely when royalty walks in: everything becomes heightened. There’s a prickle of static in the air. As the seconds ticked by, I waited for my turn to come.

Looking back, it wasn’t just one of the proudest days of my career, it felt like the moment the Shine Awards truly came of age.

Contrast the deference I describe with just a couple of weeks earlier, when the scene in Stationers’ Hall couldn’t have been more different. Over 100 students from schools across the country sat and watched their contemporaries have their names called. They ran up to the stage, gaining recognition for their school newspapers, magazines or podcasts while Charli XCX blared from the speakers.

The two occasions are inextricably linked. So here is the story of two connected days: one raucous, the other regal.

The Shine School Media Awards 2025 design scheme

Since 2014, we’ve designed an ‘annual’ for the Shine Awards, with all the winners and highly commended schools and students set out. The annual is usually around 24 pages and creating it is an incredibly satisfying endeavour. I always consider the Shine annual as the one piece of work we do each year without a brief: the only people we have to please are the students who attend the day and find the annual in their goodie bag as they left.

Having gone for bright colours and exaggerated graphics inspired by typography the last couple of years, this time around we went in a completely different direction. For 2025, we channelled the spirit of a high school yearbook: anarchic, sticker-covered and playful. In particular the cover uses three different special transparent foils which sparkle and shimmer across each of the stickers we designed. They are glittery and patterned and probably completely unlike something we’d ever usually choose, but for this job? They’re perfect. With the mood set, our design concept continues throughout the book giving a feeling that’s at once radical, accessible and fresh.

How everything came together for the awards day

Our yearbook-inspired design scheme stretched beyond the printed book and across the full suite of Shine design. This began with our huge six-metre wide banner which filled the back of Stationers’ Hall. I was really pleased that the loose, informal look turned out to be such a success. Given the contrast with the previous designs, this year’s look was both incredibly unexpected and hugely popular on the awards day. It also looks brilliant as a background to the official photos, a few of which I’ve included in this article.

The Shine School Media Awards 2025 was a banner year for the competition, with over sixty schools entering from all over the UK. Most satisfyingly, a third of our entries came from school groups who hadn’t got involved with Shine before. Students tackled everything from a standout interview with victims’ advocate Natalie Queiroz, which won ‘Scoop of the Year’, to deep-dives into global versus local news and, memorably, how to start an authoritarian regime (in theory, of course). All in all, it has been an outstanding season for Shine and its brilliant students.

My personal highlight was hearing the speech of last year’s winner of student of the year, an award named after journalistic legend and Shine founding sponsor Terry Mansfield CBE. Aditya stood in front of the assembled crowd, including the Master of the Stationers’ Company, our sponsors and specially invited guest award presenters, and gave an outstanding speech. It was nerveless, relatable and really very funny. A classic example of a Shine student showing us all how it’s done, at age 17. That’s what it’s all about.

Telling the Queen about the competition

Then, two weeks ago, the Shine team were back at Stationers’ Hall for a very different sort of occasion. The reason for the visit of Her Majesty Queen Camilla was to be ‘cloathed’ (to use the official term) as an honorary Freeman and Liveryman of the Stationers’ Company. Her carefully programmed visit began with an official welcome in the courtyard, followed by the official part of the day, a ceremony in the beautiful Court Room.

Wearing the official robes of the Company, Queen Camilla then walked into Stationers’ Hall, then gradually moved around the different groups of people assigned to meet her. When she made it over to our Shine Awards area, I had the opportunity to tell her about the competition and then described the scene at our big awards day, just three weeks previously. All twelve of the winners’ annuals we’ve designed were together on a table and I was able to give some sense of the achievements and progress the competition has made since 2014.

My job then was to introduce Shine Deputy Chair Katherine Whitbourn, who spoke with Her Majesty about the importance of journalistic training and the way in which Shine winners can go on to achieve great things. The doors that Shine can open were then explained by alumni award winner Bill Bowkett, who, after his training, went on to work at both the Daily Mail and the Evening Standard.

Thankfully, we all found the right words, bobbed and nodded in the right places and I felt the Queen was genuinely interested, asking us questions which we answered to the best of our abilities. All in all, I believe we acquitted ourselves well. And with that, it was all over!

A creative story for schools

These two moments — the awards and the royal visit — were both wonderful in their own ways. But put together, I believe they’ve propelled the Shine Awards to new heights. The national press coverage in The Times, Independent and London Standard, and the sheer thrill of telling the Queen about the competition, has already sparked a wave of interest.

Let’s hope all this leads to even more schools joining us next year. Shine is such a great way of seeking out and encouraging tomorrow’s designers, journalists and editors from every background and corner of the UK. I hope they feel it’s always possible to realise the potential of a new, original idea whoever you are, at whatever age, and gain national recognition.

On the awards day itself it’s my job to lead the ceremony; meeting Queen Camilla I felt the butterflies our shortlisted students tell me about when they’re waiting to hear if they’ve won. Some things never change. But, perhaps the lesson is that if you play your cards right, and you might just end up showing your design project to the Queen.

Find out more

Visit the Shine School Media Awards website

Discover the story of our design work for the Shine School Media Awards

More of our work for charity projects