Greg Branson is assistant managing editor/presentation and innovation at the Kansas City Star and is a judge on the long-form team for the 35th Best of News Design™ competition. To get to know him better, we posed three questions:
What are your impressions of the entries this year?
The good stuff really shines through when you find your baseline. Very quickly you say ‘this is still good, but this stuff should win awards.’ Just because you didn’t win awards doesn’t mean it wasn’t good.
Do any trends stand out?
When you look at the book you can kind of see the ebb and flow of different trends. This year, I just don’t see that. If there is a trend, it’s that winners were the simple things. It’s all about designing content. I’ve seen a lot that is overdesigned, that didn’t let the content be the content.
What do you do in your free time?
I do a lot of riding. I enjoy cars quite a bit, and also biking. I like big wide-open spaces, and that fits in with cars and bicycles. They all go together, especially living in Kansas.
Society for News Design
Society for News Design