EAE Award Winners 2013 to 2018
199920002001200220032004200520062007200820092010201120122013 to 2018Since 2019
Trek.fm (January 2013)
I often complain that the Web 2.0 killed the good old Star Trek sites, overruling the fans' personal efforts with mainstreamed "swarm intelligence", and replacing the individual touch of their sites with the uniform style dictated by big companies. Trek.fm uses all the techniques of the Web 2.0. Yet, the site combines the best of both worlds. Trek.fm offers podcasts, videos, articles and news much like a traditional personal Star Trek site, but accomplishes all this in the environment of a community, and apparently a quite prolific one. Its individuality is visible in the content provided by various contributors, but also in the pleasant design of the site that is not disrupted by ads. I especially like the countless comic-style illustrations, which are among the best I have seen on any site. My only slight point of criticism is that some older articles or news items are hard to find, owing to the lack of a sub-menu structure, a sitemap or a browsable archive. In any case Trek.fm is so versatile and so nice to read and to listen to that it deserves an EAE Award by all means.
MadMan's Shipyard (September 2013)
I have no idea of the techniques of 3D design and I can only admire the final result even if it contains slight imperfections. Yet, I have certain expectations when it comes to starships in 3D, expectations that Ricky Wallace aka MadMan fulfills. He certainly knows how to handle the software and create shapes. He also has an eye for the details and textures that make a design feel "real". And perhaps most notably, besides modeling established ships or slight variations thereof, MadMan has the imagination to try out unusual design directions. For instance, he has developed a whole line of Abramsverse designs, a more detailed "ideal" Prime Universe Enterprise (together with Rick Carthew) and even starships in the style of Disney's "Cars". MadMan presents his work the old-fashioned way, in self-compiled galleries and on download pages. It may not be the biggest but is one of the most well-rounded 3D artwork websites. I can't get enough of MadMan's work, a bit of which is on display at EAS too, and I think he deserves one of my (now rare!) EAE Awards.
TrekNews.net (January 2014)
Most of the early sites (until about 2005) with news about the Star Trek franchise and licensed products didn't last longer than just one or two years. But despite the lack of new Trek on TV the online coverage of Star Trek topics has changed for the better. TrekNews.net is a site that has been around for a while and that I visit on a regular basis. Like many other news sites, it is arranged as a blog. One thing that I like about TrekNews.net is the presentation. Each entry on the main page consists of a large picture and a text block with well-formatted paragraphs, which is a pleasant contrast to the layout of many other blogs, let alone the cluttered format of Facebook. And while TrekNews.net suffers from some commonly known drawbacks of blogs such as a lack of a navigation structure, it includes direct links to tags such as "Reviews", "Star Trek Conventions", "Star Trek Into Darkness", "TNG in HD", so the news on important topics is easy to find. Since a few other news sites have already received the EAS Award, it is only fair to honor the great work of Brian Wilkins, his staff and contributors in the same fashion.
Star Trek HD (September 2014)
The EAE Award goes to a German blog that doesn't only cover similar topics as EAS (episode and Blu-ray reviews including nitpicking). In a way, Star Trek HD is just as I would want to make my own site look and work if I had the chance to start from scratch again. Star Trek HD comes with a pleasant and modern design, with commendable navigation (in an era where menu bars are increasingly abandoned on other sites) and with a great presentation of the articles, in the preview as well as the full version. Even the ads blend in as if they were designed specifically for the site. Created by long-time fans and prop collectors Christian Hinze and Christian Bewernick, Star Trek HD has become a prime source of information on new Star Trek releases for German speaking fans. It is a compendium with a personal touch just like EAS, but also a forum for a small but active community. In any case, Star Trek HD is one of the few new fan sites that thrive on diligent work, and not on postings of funny pictures with some random text.
Star Trek: The Animated Voyages (October 2015)
It has a been over a year since I gave out the last EAE Award. A year in which the decline of traditional websites and blogs has continued. But there are still people who boldly defy the trend. Such as Jon Markiewitz, who takes the effort to present his TAS-style webcomics on a custom-made website. The EAE Award is not just for the website design, but it goes just as well to his beautifully drawn and entertaining comics. The third issue will be released shortly. The design of Star Trek: The Animated Voyages has recently been upgraded too. The website is a perfect framework for the comic, which doesn't require any plug-ins like an overblown Flash player but can be viewed directly as a series of images in the browser. Well, a lean PHP script might be helpful to thumb through the pages, but that is a minor issue on a great site. The site design feels like a homage to the 1990s just as much as to the style of TAS, and shows that the color scheme doesn't always have to be conformist dark gray on light gray. Finally, Star Trek: The Animated Voyages also defies the rule that all artists have terrible websites. Congratulations to Jon Markiewitz! I'm looking forward to further issues of his imaginative series.
Enterprise-D 3D Project (December 2015) 
A few months ago a new project caught my attention, whose goal is nothing less than the 3D reconstruction of the interior of the Enterprise-D. This is like dream coming true for me and for other fans, who have been following the series attentively and who would love to walk through the familiar rooms as well as the so far unexplored spaces on the huge ship. Jason, who runs the project, sticks to the look and feel of the Enterprise-D as established on screen and incorporates Andrew Probert's original ideas wherever possible. The reconstructed interior is built using the Unreal Game Engine, which allows walk-throughs as well as future game developments. Unfortunately the walk-through demo of the already finished sections, including the spacious Shuttlebay 1 and the bridge, was taken down by YouTube "due to a copyright claim by CBS" (more likely by a bot that tags anything related to Star Trek that isn't officially licensed). It remains to be seen if and how the project can continue. For now, there is a nicely designed website that describes the project, names and explains the references and shows off some sample pictures. There is also a forum for visitors to pose questions and make suggestions. I keep my fingers crossed that Jason will find a way to carry on with or without the blessing of CBS.
LCARSGFX - Padsbrat's Doings and Musings (November 2016)
LCARSGFX - Padsbrat's Doings and Musings is the showcase for the LCARS artwork of Alexander Richardson. His LCARS cross-sections of many Star Trek ships, canon and fan-designed, make up the biggest part of the site. And they are amazing. I love the level of detail in the drawings, as well as the era-specific color schemes of the single ships. Moreover, I cherish any effort to flesh out what is inside our favorite ships because I always tried hard but was never good at that. Alexander knows very well how to create 2D artwork, and he knows how to present it. The website is organized as a Workpress blog. It is frequently updated with new artwork, with making-ofs or with random musings. The blog has an LCARS look, but only for the background, while the core of the design uses a modern theme with stacked boxes and with a better legible font. Still, it all matches up very well. There are very few new Star Trek sites and few are left that deserve an EAE Award, but Alexander's blog is definitely among them. Congratulations!
Fan Film Factor (October 2017)
For over twenty years, Jonathan Lane has been working on licensed Star Trek products as well as on fan productions. He maintains Fan Film Factor, a frequently updated personal blog and one of the few Trek sites that I visit on a regular basis. Fan Film Factor consists of editorials, feature stories, interviews and, of course, lists and reviews of fan films. Star Trek fan films date back as far as to the 1970s. Most of them were made by enthusiasts with very small budgets, and this becomes very obvious when watching them. Jonathan has decided to cherish the efforts of anyone creating a fan film and to leave out any negativity when talking about them. Fan Film Factor is governed by the "Prime Directive": "There is no such thing as a bad fan film." Regarding the official productions and controversial issues such as the Axanar lawsuit, on the other hand, Jonathan Lane is assertive and outspoken. Fans may not agree about everything he writes, but the Star Trek fandom needs independent sites like Fan Film Factor. Jonathan is a strong voice of those fans who want to be more than just customers, who want to be creative. And even more so since he runs Fan Film Factor.
The Star Trek Design Project (August 2018)
The emblems, insignia and other symbols of Star Trek are much more than just decoration. The Starfleet arrowhead and the Klingon emblem, for instance, are so ingrained in the franchise that even Discovery doesn't disregard them. But there are also the many obscure symbols that could be briefly glimpsed in single episodes. There have been various efforts to redraw these symbols, including my own humble attempts. The Star Trek Design Project is the most systematic one so far. The goal of the site is to show accurate reproductions of all canon symbols, and only of canon symbols, along with screen caps as references. There are currently 232 symbols in the collection. It is laudable that Brad Wilder, who created the graphics, presents them on a conventional website and not on one of the various social media platforms. The only slight criticism is that there is currently no way to see what is new. I discovered The Star Trek Design Project just a few days ago but I am sure it deserves one of the rare EAE Awards.
Proceed to EAE Award Winners Since 2019
