What is it? A worldwide competition run by the folks behind SportsDesigner, aimed at finding and showcasing the best work in sports design from 2015.
What happened last year? You can find all the details about the Best of Sports Design 2014 here.
SNDDC 2015: The winners (in all categories) will be announced during a session at SNDSF, April 7-9. If you have not registered, you will want to join in on this.
How it works: You’ll enter (see below). Entries will be collected and audited in each category. A team of five judges (plus a conflict judge) will rank their favorites in each category. The rankings will be averaged. The top 7 percent (roughly) in each category will be awarded Best of Sports Design for 2015. Then, right here on this site, we — as in all of us — will vote on our favorite winners in each category, anointing an Editors’ Choice for 2015.
Does it cost anything? It’s free. It costs me the months of February and March if you’re into economics.
Who judges? We will assemble a roster of about 35 judges from around the world, representing a cross-section of sports design. We’ll have students, sports editors, photographers, art directors, managing editors and SND officials, among others.
Would you like to judge? We always have more judging requests than slots to fill, but if you’d like to be considered, please email sportsdesigner@gmail.com with your information.
How to enter: Send your entries (or nominate the work of others) to sportsdesigner@gmail.com. Include the name of the publication, name(s) of those involved with the entry and the entry itself, in one of the formats below.
Entry formats: You can send entries in PDF or JPEG format. (Please make sure the JPEG is large enough to be read on a screen). You can attach them to your email or you can link to them. Popular choices for links include Flickr, Coroflot and the newest incarnation of NewsPageDesigner. Links are technically the easiest on me, but we can make just about anything work.
Eligible work: Work published between January 1 and December 31, 2015 is all that is acceptable, with two exceptions* noted below in the Multiple Page Categories.
Entry deadline: 6 p.m. EDT Wednesday, March 16, 2016
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THE CATEGORIES
SINGLE PAGES
Live game covers: Submit a cover primarily devoted to coverage of a live game or event.
Breaking news covers: Submit a cover primarily devoted to coverage of a breaking sports event other than a live game. (Examples: Obituaries, news of a hiring/firing, a steroid scandal)
Enterprise/feature centerpieces: Submit a cover primarily devoted to sports enterprise, features or follow stories from a breaking news or live game. (Second-day follow covers from games or events would go here).
Special section covers: Submit a cover of a special section (a non-regularly-appearing section).
Inside pages/live or breaking: Submit an inside page or pages (a doubletruck or an inside project that spills onto a second, third or more pages counts as a single entry in this category) designed live on deadline from a game or breaking sports news event.
Inside pages/enterprise or special section: Submit an inside page or pages (a doubletruck or an inside project that spills onto a second, third or more pages counts as a single entry in this category) from special sections or enterprise projects.
Photo page/poster: Submit a single page (a doubletruck counts as a single page) devoted to photography. This can be a classic “photo” page or a full page poster.
Sports illustration: Submit a page (cover or inside) that showcases illustration and art directing.
MULTIPLE PAGES, SINGLE DAY
Only submit entries from one single day in these categories.
Live game cover story: Submit the cover and related inside pages from coverage of any live game or sporting event in 2014.
Enterprise/special section cover story: Submit the cover and related inside pages from enterprise projects, special sections or breaking news.
MULTIPLE PAGES, MULTIPLE DAYS
Submit entries from more than one day of coverage in these categories. See the note* on acceptable dates at the end.
Special coverage/series or project: Submit multiple days of coverage on a single topic in this category. This would be the place to enter ongoing series or multiple days of coverage following a breaking news event.
Special coverage/event or team: Submit multiple days of coverage of a sports event or a team in this category. This would be the place to enter Olympics coverage, coverage of, say, the Vikings’ football season or your body of World Cup Qualifying work.
* Note on acceptable dates in these two categories: The coverage in these categories must showcase planning and execution from 2015. However, in cases where the end a season spilled over into 2015 (NFL, college football and NHL, to name a few), a portion of relevant, on-topic pages from 2015 are acceptable here).
MULTIMEDIA
Sports project: Submit a single day or multiple days of coverage of a single topic. This can be web, mobile or tablet, with the caveat that all judges must be able to access and view the entry easily.
Multimedia graphic: Submit a single sports infographic published digitally in 2015.
COLLEGES
College Sports Page: Submit single pages in this category.
College Sports Designer of the Year: Submit exactly six pages from a single designer in 2015.
Note: Sports Designer of the Year is on indefinite hiatus. Stay tuned.