Announcing the Region 19 Olympics competition winners

SND’s Region 19 — covering Asia and the South Pacific, including India, Australia, Japan, Indonesia and Southeast Asia — recently put out a call for the best pages covering the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. Entries came in from all over the globe, well beyond the borders of Region 19, which was awesome to see and underscores SND’s international reach. Papers in the Middle East, Central and South America and the United States joined in.

This competition was coordinated by Region 19 director T.K. Sajeev Kumar, and judged by Chris Courtney, lead mentor at Bloc in Chicago; Satoshi Toyoshima, assistant graphics editor at The Sankei Shimbun in Toyko; and myself.

We had three categories: Front Page, Sports Front, and Information Graphics. Many thanks to everyone who participated. We hope to see these works in the 38th Best of News Design competition.

Without further ado, here’s the best of what we saw:

FRONT PAGE

GOLD: Malayala Manorama. This illustration highlights India’s top medal prospects.
This daily morning newspaper, in Malayalam language, is published from Kottayam in the state of Kerala, India, and has a circulation of 2.1 million daily.

SILVER: The New Indian Express. This English-language paper covers southern India and is published in 22 cities. It has a daily circulation of 435,000.

BRONZE: Tribuna de Santos. Based in Baixada Santista, near Sao Paulo, Brazil, this is one of the country’s oldest papers, dating to 1894.

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SPORTS FRONT

GOLD: AZCentral. From the Arizona Republic, based in Phoenix, Arizona, and owned by Gannett, it’s the state’s largest newspaper, with daily circulation of 320,000.

SILVER: The Missourian. This paper is managed by professional editors and staffed by Missouri School of Journalism students, who do everything. It dates to 1908.

BRONZE: Diario Testigo. Based in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico. You can view more of illustrator Alberto Zavala’s incredible work here.

HONORABLE MENTION

Kannada Prabha, India.

The Gulf News, Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Columbia Missourian, U.S.A.

The Hindustan Times, New Delhi, India.

Diario Testigo, Mexico.

The Straits Times, Singapore.

The Times of Oman.

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INFORMATION GRAPHICS

GOLD: Zero Hora.This amazing spread was produced by Ohana Constante, Paula Menezes and Gabriel Renner of the Brazilian newspaper Zero Hora, which is based Porto Alegre, the sixth biggest city in the country.

SILVER: VisualSports. Ignacio Sanchez and Antonio Ortega collaborated on this piece, celebrating Michael Phelps’ career, for VisualSports, a Mexico based sports information agency.

BRONZE: Muscat Daily. This page profiles the top athletes in the Games. Muscat Daily is a 33,500-circulation daily based in Oman. It was launched in 2009.

HONORABLE MENTION

Nuestro Diario, Guatemala.

The Times of Oman.

The Times of Oman.

The Straits Times, Singapore.

InfoJogos, Brazil.

Kannada Prabha, India.

Visual Sports, Mexico.

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JUDGES’ SPECIAL RECOGNITION

The judges would like to recognize the designers and editors at the Columbia Missourian, for their bold photo editing and display. The Missourian’s sports fronts were a standout, using simple architecture that consistently respected and elevated the power of sports photography.