41 judges in Singapore and the San Francisco Bay Area name Hailey Haymond as World’s Best Emerging Designer and Tyler Remmel as World’s Best Designer in SND’s annual Creative Competition
Designers from the Washington Post swept the Society for News Design’s highest honors for individuals at the 47th edition of the organization’s annual Creative Competition, SND47.
World’s Best Emerging Designer recognizes the designer with no more than five years of experience who has the strongest entry in eligible individual portfolio categories. Judges take into consideration design skills across a range of platforms or topics.
World’s Best Designer recognizes the designer who has the strongest portfolio among all individual portfolio categories.
During a discussion across time zones, 41 judges drawn from newsrooms and organizations around the world nominated, debated and voted on the Society’s capstone awards for individuals and publications.
World’s Best Emerging Designer
The jury selected Hailey Haymond, formerly of The Washington Post, as the World’s Best Emerging Designer.
The judges praised the high-quality, aesthetically pleasing design and excellent art direction and illustration featured in Haymond’s work. They also highlighted how her portfolio showcased a variety of skills through many disciplines.
“The fact that someone has the initiative as a visual journalist to be as involved in this from all levels of production deserves recognition,” said one jury member.
“It feels kind of surreal,” Haymond said about winning World’s Best Emerging Designer. “It feels like I’ve been entering SND since I was a student, and it was how I got connected to SND and ultimately to the Post.
“I was looking back at my portfolio, and I felt really proud of the storytelling range that I got to do this year at the Post. … I’m so proud of this coming after all the layoffs at the Post and getting laid off myself.”
Haymond praised the Post’s teamwork and the leadership of Greg Manifold and Brian Gross, former Head of Visuals and former Head of the Design Department at the Post respectively.
“They were really good at finding young designers and giving them the space to learn, to do the work, to work with such an incredible team and to get better at illustration and art direction,” she said. “Because of the number of projects you get to touch, you get to learn how to make things impactful.”
Manifold was a member of the SND47 jury, and Gross served as a competition team captain.
Haymond described how her last two years at the Post were defined by meaningful projects and her coming into her own as a news designer.
She is currently taking stock of her future, including exploring freelance and part-time work. But she feels invigorated after seeing the results of SND47.
“I would love to keep going with visual storytelling and exploring that at other outlets,” she said of her next steps.
World’s Best Designer
Judges selected Tyler Remmel, a senior product designer of the Washington Post and chair of the Competition Committee, as World’s Best Designer.
The jury described Remmel’s work as striking and unique, praising its sophisticated typography, excellent use of white space and strong attention to detail.
They highlighted his ability to excel across many approaches to visual journalism, showing restraint, consistency and a clear voice while putting the story first with respect for the subject matter. They also described the work as brave, unexpected and beautifully presented.
The jury concurred with one judge who said that they “can’t find a single thing that could be done better” during the discussion.
“It’s humbling to be named World’s Best Designer, but it’s also a testament to the collaborative spirit within the visual departments as the Post,” Remmel said. “I got to work with the best people in the industry to put these pages together. This is an individual award, but I don’t view it as an individual honor.”
About the awards and voting process
The judges were based in Reuters’ office in Singapore, where it was the morning of April 24, and in the San Francisco Bay Area at U.C. Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Campus, where it was the evening of April 23.
In order to win either award, the designer had to appear on a majority of the judges’ ballots.
“What is extraordinary about both of these winning designers is their ability to distinguish themselves,” said Alex K. Fong, SND Vice President, co-host of the Berkeley judging site and the creative director and a masthead editor at the San Francisco Chronicle. “They work at a publication with a very controlled design voice and yet were able to find ways to present unique takes on that style, while also completing their visual storytelling work with the highest levels of ingenuity and execution.”
During the discussion and voting, individuals with a conflict of interest, including volunteers and members of the jury, are required to vacate the judging areas to prevent any possibility of their affecting the outcome. Judges with a conflict of interest are not allowed to cast a vote.
Multiple Washington Post employees past and present — including Manifold, Gross and Remmel — left Clark Kerr’s Garden Room as the debates unfolded and awaited the completion of voting in an exterior hallway.
Jake Lovett, a Minnesota Star Tribune designer and competition Projects chair and team captain, and Jasen Lo, a Philadelphia Inquirer Interactive Newsroom Developer and a competition team captain, stepped in to facilitate the process in Berkeley.
“The conflict abstention process is one of the core tenets of the SND judging process,” Lovett said. “Asking anyone who works for the organization being discussed — or with a personal relationship to the work or designer behind it — to leave the room lets the judging panel speak freely, openly and honestly about the work, and come to the most honest conclusion possible with no threat of influence or fear of offending anyone involved.”
Last year, Emma Kumar of the Washington Post won World’s Best Emerging Designer, and Fernando Baptista, an infographics expert who works at National Geographic, won World’s Best Designer.
The full list of SND47 award winners is online. SND revealed the winners of Best In Show on April 28.
