The Society for News Design is proud to announce the results of the 44th edition of its Best of News Design competition. This year, 47 judges from seven countries came to New York City to review more than 4,500 print and digital entries. This year, for the first time ever, print and digital judging happened simultaneously over the course of three days, taking place from May 17 – May 20, 2023.
The competitions awarded three organizations the honor of World’s Best Designed: DIE ZEIT, The New York Times and Reuters. There were six additional finalists.
The digital competition awarded Simon Scarr the World’s Best Designer honor. This is the third year that a designer has been recognized as World’s Best.
The digital competition also awarded Best in Show to entries from the South China Morning Post, ProPublica, Rest of World and Jetpack.ai. No Best in Show was awarded in the print competition.
The Best of News Design Creative Competition honors excellence in visual storytelling, design and journalism produced in 2022. Nearly 1,700 entries received an award this year, and there were a total of 23 gold medals and 107 silver medals across both competitions.
Best of Digital News Design
This year, the Best of Digital News Design competition had 20 judges review more than 1,800 entries. They awarded 6 gold medals, 33 silver medals, 93 bronze medals and 530 Awards of Excellence.
This juried competition recognizes journalistic excellence in storytelling, graphics, social media and product design. The goal of the contest is to identify the best of journalism that pushes the boundaries of design and technology.
The top 10 award-winning publications were:
- The Washington Post
- The New York Times
- Reuters
- The Straits Times
- South China Morning Post Publishers LTD
- The Marshall Project
- ESPN
- ProPublica
- La Nacion SA
- Bloomberg News
Best of Print News Design
This year, the Best of Print News Design competition had 27 judges from across the globe review more than 2,500 entries across 11 categories.. The competition honors journalistic, visual and technical excellence for work produced in 2022.
The competition ended with the judges awarding 17 gold medals, 74 silver medals and 926 awards of excellence. No Best in Show was awarded. You can find the complete database of winners from this year’s competition here.
The top 10 award-winning publications from SND44 were:
- New York Times
- Washington Post
- Star Tribune
- DIE ZEIT
- Politico Europe
- Los Angeles Times
- The Globe and Mail
- National Geographic
- de Volkskrant
- American City Business Journals and South China Morning Post (tie)
Each judging panel is asked to craft a statement that reflects on the work in which they judged. These are each team’s top takeaways about the work that was published in 2022:
News
The premier news entries in this year’s SND Best of Print News Design competition seamlessly threaded together a range of extremely high-level decisions and implementations. Pinpoint-planning and bold choices led to pages that demanded more than the reader’s attention: they made you sit forward in your chair and interact with the information they presented. We rewarded fearless choices that supported and elevated the story – risks with a reason. We delighted in the surprising, the cheeky. We marveled at the ease with which some pages implemented conceptual design, effortlessly handling hard-to-illustrate topics. We took in pages that evoked an emotional response; those that made us smile and those that made us feel quite the opposite. Simple and staggering in their nature, these entries captured the moments and concepts of the year. And, we held rigorous discussions on them all. We debated. We debated. We debated. Two newspapers presented a sobering milestone from possibly the biggest story of our lifetime. One million American lives lost to the pandemic. One million. The weight of that story cannot be dismissed. The New York Times and Star Tribune made sure it was not. The space and play they gave the story exhibited its importance. The detailed graphics that filled the front and back pages provided stunning reflection. By guiding the reader’s experience, the design served as the last lap of the story-telling process.These powerful packages were loud in their quietness, bold in their subtlety, striking an overall tone that was impactful and reverent. The gold-medal winning pages were joined by a bevy of significant pages, packages and portfolios that stood above the rest. They represent the best work of 2022. They remain snapshots of history and highlight the crucial place design still holds at the table.
Features
With fiery passion, we eagerly evaluated this year’s entries, seeking layouts that evoked strong emotions and made us smile, laugh and empathize. Grandeur in illustrations executed with meticulous detail on broadsheets and spreads captivated us. Judicious color applications that enhanced typography impressed us, while the seamless integration of graphics along with rich photography excited us. Narrowing the selection of winners was a challenge. As passionate debates ensued, it led to analyzing the layouts’ complexity, coherence, consistency and nuances. We ultimately agreed on standout designs that possessed elegance, emotional significance and outstanding qualities. Thank you to all that submitted and those whose exceptional talent and dedication made it possible to reward the Society for News Design’s prestigious honors in the features categories.
Longform
The longform judges were impressed and inspired by the range of each entry. We were drawn to presentations with striking visuals and good pacing. Attention to detail was crucial – especially paying close attention to the balance of photos, illustrations, infographics, typography, amount of text, color and spacing. The entries that were tightly edited, well organized and demonstrated consistency were among the best. Our team thoroughly discussed how each entry pushed the limitations of its platform – specifically in the print and digital combo category. The entries that took a daring approach, while still implementing a clean, elegant and concise design were medal contenders. Gold medal winners each maximized impact while maintaining a very detailed, organized and emotional approach.
World’s Best Designed
Judging this year’s World’s Best Designed Newspaper category, we looked for design solutions that exceeded what had already been established as the best in the industry. This year’s finalists consistently brought wit and sophistication to their storytelling, demonstrating excellence at every turn. We evaluated how well each organization worked within their own design system to create cohesion and variety in the overall product. The finalists in this year’s competition each demonstrated impressive design approaches that enabled them to craft solutions appropriate to the mood, tone and mission of their content. We also took into account how effectively each publication served its particular readership. These finalists performed expertly, story after story, page after page, in a way that helped build a sincere bond with their readers. Journalism is a living craft, growing and evolving. We, as visual storytellers, help readers navigate an increasingly complex information landscape. These publications exhibit a mastery that points the way forward.