Have you made your nominations for the Design Bloggers Hall of Fame yet? Nominations will close on December 21 – make sure your favorite blogs are recognized!
The awards will be presented at lunch during the first day of the Design Bloggers Conference on February 27 at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. We’re thrilled to announce that the host for the awards ceremony will be design/lifestyle writer Jason Oliver Nixon.
Jason Oliver Nixon doesn’t just understand the fabulous life; he knows how to unearth it. Far beyond his ability to quote Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Draper, and Noel Coward, it is Nixon’s laser-sharp ability to discover what is truly cutting edge and unique that has led to his current role as a lifestyle guru and authority on taste.
The Global Lifestyle Editor at Delta Sky magazine, the in-flight publication of the world’s largest airline, Nixon has the task of trend-spotting and cultivating and searching out global content and talent to ensure that the publication maintains an inspired, innovative vision. He lives out of an acid-orange Globe-Trotter suitcase, constantly on the prowl for the latest and greatest finds.
Nixon began his publishing career at Condé Nast Traveler, where he served as an Associate Editor and new products editor for three years, covering the travel-product beat and writing features and front-of-book stories. He held a senior editorial role at Fodor’s Travel Guides’ book division and was the Editor of New Media on the fodors.com website before turning to television. He was the launch Field Producer for E! Entertainment’s “True Hollywood Stories” series and the Executive Producer of Robin Leach’s Gourmet Getaways at the Food Network and simultaneously wrote regular restaurant reviews for Paper magazine and a column for the James Beard Foundation’s monthly newsletter. Nixon was awarded with a James Beard Scholarship to attend the esteemed French Culinary Institute, and as a result, was inspired to write the book New York’s 50 Best Places to Eat Brunch.
Nixon eventually left the Food Network to return to the publishing world in affluent Palm Beach, Florida where he launched the Ocean Drive magazine spin-off Ocean Drive’s Palm Beach, a luxury-targeted, general-interest publication. Later, he became the Editor in Chief and Editorial Director of Niche Media LLC, successfully re-launching Hamptons magazine as a controlled-circulation, general-interest summer weekly to target high-end consumers. The magazine’s overwhelming success led Nixon to subsequently launch several highly targeted regional magazines for the group, including Gotham, Los Angeles Confidential, Aspen Peak, Boston Common, and Capitol File as well as Niche’s custom-publishing division, where he developed branded publications for companies such as Tourneau. Nixon has served as the Chief Luxury Officer for the Four Seasons Hotels magazine where he oversaw all design, style, fashion, and accessories coverage for the publication and served as a roving brand ambassador.
Nixon contributes regularly as a writer, producer, stylist, fashion consultant, wrangler, and lifestyle guru to such publications as Virtuoso Life, Town & Country, and Entrée, the Neiman Marcus magazine. He makes frequent appearances on E! and MTV as a style correspondent. Nixon is also one half of the Brooklyn-based interior design firm Madcap Cottage (f/k/a John Loecke Inc.), whose colorful projects have been published in magazines and newspapers such as Domino, House Beautiful, Country Living, Better Homes and Gardens, the New York Times, British House & Garden, and the New York Post. Nixon curates a global style and design blog entitled Demystifying Design that captures his and John Loecke’s far-flung adventures and fabulous finds as they scour the world for Madcap Cottage.
A native of Tampa, Florida, Nixon is a graduate of Maine’s Colby College. Nixon splits his time between a row house in Brooklyn and a renovated schoolhouse in New York’s Catskill Mountains, where he can be found puttering in his garden and Tweeting about his plants.