44th annual creative competition: Winners judged in 2023 on work published in 2022

Jump to print results | Jump to digital results | Previous years

The Society for News Design is proud to announce results from the 44th edition of the Best of News Design Creative Competition. Winners were selected by 47 visual journalists who gathered in New York to assess the best work published in 2022. More than 35 organizations and seven countries — including Dubai and South Korea — were represented in the makeup of the judging panel. 

For the first time, judging of entries for the digital and print competitions happened simultaneously. The intense, standard-setting competition culminated in a never-before-publicized Best in Show discussion held by the print judges at the Annual Workshop.

The Best of News Design Creative Competition honors excellence in visual storytelling, design and journalism produced in 2022. Winners were announced live during the competition except for our highest honors, World’s Best Designed Newspaper, World’s Best Digital News Experience, World’s Best Digital Designer and Digital’s Best in Show, which were announced the week following the workshop. Related: Categories and how to enter.

Awards

World’s Best Designed: Each year, the highest goal of this competition is to identify work that has fundamentally shifted or improved how news and information is delivered across digital platforms. This award has been given to websites and apps, but also to overall experiences or organizations.

World’s Best Designer: World’s Best Designer is given to the individual designer that has the strongest portfolio among all individual portfolio categories 

Best in Show: SND Digital’s Best in show is meant to recognize the best individual entries from the entire competition. Best in Show awards are divided by organizational size to take those challenges into consideration. This year, we have: 

• Best in Show for small organizations
• Best in Show for medium organizations
• Best in Show for large organizations

Gold Medals: Visual storytelling that defines the state of the art. These entries must stretch the limits of creativity both visually and technically. They must be groundbreaking in both form and fit — telling their story in the most powerful way imaginable. It should be perfect or as near as one can reasonably come. Any entry receiving this award should be held up as the gold standard for the design community.

Silver Medals: The aesthetic and technical proficiency of these entries should stretch the limits of the medium — representing an elevated level of execution and originality in pursuit of powerful storytelling. It should be nearly impossible to find anything deficient.

Bronze Medals: Recognizes visual storytelling at the leading edge of craftsmanship or innovation. These entries should demonstrate technical mastery, aesthetic mastery, or both. Entries receiving a Bronze Medal must have an elevated level of execution, originality or degree of difficulty.

Award of Excellence: Recognizes outstanding and excellent visual storytelling. These entries go beyond mere technical or aesthetic competency and may push the boundaries of originality and creativity.

A team of 20 judges was selected by the Digital News Design Competition Committee to evaluate each entry on how well it accomplishes its editorial and design objectives. SND strives for diversity in judges, who are journalism, new media and design experts from around the world. If judges have any apparent conflicts of interest on particular entries, they will not be assigned to evaluate those entries.

The Best of Print News Design competition is part of the 44th edition of the Best of News Design Creative Competition. SND invited 27 judges from around the globe to review nearly 2700 entries across 11 categories during four days of judging. The Best of Print News Design competition honors visual storytelling and design for editorial work produced in 2022.

World’s Best Designed: This is the highest honor that can be awarded to a publication or publications during the SND Creative Competition. The judging panel evaluates publications based on writing, visual storytelling, photography, headlines, use of resources, execution, voice and overall design from three complete editions. This honor is awarded outside of other categories where entries are in consideration for Awards of Excellence, Silver and Gold Medals.

Best in Show: This is the highest honor that can be awarded to a single entry during the SND Creative Competition. All Gold Medal winners are considered for this award at the conclusion of judging. Only one Best in Show may be given and 75 percent of the judging panel must agree in order for a Best in Show to be awarded. This is granted to the best single entry among all categories, apart from entries considered for World’s Best Designed.

Gold Medal: Granted for work that clearly stands out even among Silver Medal winners. It should be nearly impossible to find anything deficient in a gold-winning entry. These entries will define the state of the art. 

Silver Medal: Granted for work that rises above excellence. The Silver Medal can be given for work that represents an elevated level of execution, originality of concept or high-end work done with a high degree of difficulty. Even among Award of Excellence winners, these entries should shine.

Award of Excellence: Granted for truly excellent work, going beyond mere technical or aesthetic competency. It honors outstanding entries for such things as being daring and innovative, even if they are less than 100 percent in every respect.

Judges’ Special Recognition: This honor can be awarded by a team of judges or by all judges for work that is outstanding in a particular respect not necessarily singled out by the Award of Excellence, Silver or Gold medals. It has been granted for such things as use of photography, use of informational graphics and use of typography throughout a body of work. This body of work may be a particular publication, a section or section by an individual or staff. The special recognition does not supplant any Award of Excellence, Silver or Gold medal and should be seen as an adjunct.  

A team of 27 judges was selected by the Best of Print News Design Competition Committee to evaluate each entry on how well it accomplishes its editorial and design objectives. SND strives for diversity in judges, who are journalism, new media and design experts from around the world. If judges have any apparent conflicts of interest on particular entries, they will not be assigned to evaluate those entries.

The Best of Print News Design Competition Committee includes 10 journalists from newsrooms across the United States and Canada. The committee oversees the direction of each year’s competition, selecting judges, facilitating the judging and maintaining the call for entries. 

Greg Mees of the Star Tribune is Chair of SND Creative Competition’s Best of Print News Design and Allison Hong of the Los Angeles Times is the 44th Best of Print News Design Competition Coordinator.

The Best of Print News Design Competition Committee includes: Tyler Remmel, Washington Post; Adam Rogers, Villages Daily Sun; Shaun Martin, American City Business Journals; Catie Peterson, American City Business Journals; Greg Mees, Star Tribune; Steve Zimmerman, Star Tribune; Josh Jones, Star Tribune; Allison Hong, Los Angeles Times; Nicole Vas, Los Angeles Times; Brad Needham, PMNA

The annual Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition started in 1979, and the contest was opened to magazines in 2009 as the name changed to the Best of News Design. Since 2002, SND has invited entries from all news sites published anywhere in the world (formerly known as the SNDies) to recognize skill, innovation and high-quality digital journalism.