Nelda Rodger, the editorial director and co-founder of Azure, passed away after a long illness. Nelda Rodger was born in 1952; she was the founder of the famous award-winning Azure magazine. She launched the magazine in 1985 with her husband, Sergio Sgaramella. Eventually, she founded AZ Awards; she died at the age of 70 on January 4.
On this sad occasion, Azure released a statement about Rodger “From the earliest, oversize editions, Azure has brimmed with a wit and a sense of expansiveness of mind and spirit that are pure Nelda,”
Rodger Made new “mile stones” in the design
Source: yumpu.com
In the year 2000, Azure won the Candian National Magazine Awards through the guidance of Rodger. Later Azure Magazine turned into Azure media through the help of Rodger and Sgarmella. Print magazines like Azure and Designlines are the products of Azure Media.
While others were working on the same traditional design categories, Rodger was also thinking about the future and was ahead of the present time. She always had new ideas when it came to covering new designs. She makes a new definition of the word “design”.
Rodger also had a perfect sense of the upcoming talent and interviewed some of the most emerging designers and architects like Patricia Urquiola and David Adjaye. Rodger also interviewed some other famous designers like Ettore Sottsass and architect Gaetano Pesce.
AZ Awards Launched in Canada
Sources: Azure
AZ Awards, launched by Rodger in 2011, shows excellent designs and global architecture through Azure Media. Azure said, “Nelda was integral to the evolution of Designlines magazine and azuremagazine.com and the inception and stewardship of the AZ Awards,”.
TikTok partnership leader Karen T Kang first met with Rodger in 2007 and worked with her from 2013 to 2020; at that time, Kang was the Head of Content at the Interior Design Show. Kang remembered Nelad and said, “Nelda has a very imaginary eye that she could find true talent; she immediately saw the emerging designers and architects.
People paying tribute through social media
AzureMagazine
It is with a heavy heart that we announce the death of Nelda Rodger, Azure’s co-founder and Editorial Director, who passed on January 4, 2023 after a long illness.
joel berman
It is with the utmost sadness to hear of Nelda’s passing. My condolences and love to Sergio and family. My her memory be a blessing to all who knew her. She made a difference.
Frontier Magazine
Condolences from all of us at Frontier—there were audible gasps when I posted this to Slack.
I’ve been an eager reader since finding Azure on newsstands in New York in the late ’90s/early ’00s and am so appreciative that she & Sergio took the leap they did.
The Cultural Landscape Foundation
We are very saddened to learn of the death of Nelda Rodger, co-founder of the indispensable design publication
@AzureMagazine
– We offer condolences to her family, friends, and her co-workers at Azure
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