The judges wrote:
If The Grid were a friend — and it seems like it’s aiming to be – it would be the one who grabs this and that from their closet, adds a colorful scarf and a thrift shop bracelet to create a near perfect effect.
Pleasingly jumbled at first glance, the whole look is deceivingly harmonious and smart, supported by a design grid that might be 7 columns, 5 columns or somewhere in between, but is always in the neighborhood of hip.
A small-format entertainment weekly, The Grid is a wait-for-a-date publication – full of quick reads, alternative story forms, and engaging infographics – ideal for the coffee shop or bar. It might easily make you forget to look at your phone.
The Grid also offers more traditional fare but does not couple it with staid layout. Knowing and wise in its news presentation, it makes creative use of black space (yes, we mean black) as well as white. Whether it is offering relief from a fact-packed news story – with a color-wheel graphic of 10 minutes at a Toronto council meeting or a Venn diagram in neon colors about what Toronto chefs are putting into tacos – The Grid’s use of color is likely one of the primary elements that sets it apart in the reader’s mind.
But don’t let the eye candy fool you. The Grid’s use of color to shock, surprise and entertain is secondary to its mission – to inform.
Beneath the attitude and fun on its covers and throughout, there is real information about Toronto’s neighborhoods, its food trends, its politics and more.
Like a good friend, The Grid is perched next to the reader, ready to share funny and useful insider information about life in Toronto.
Read about the other World’s Best winners: Dagens Nyheter, Die Zeit, The Guardian and Welt am Sonntag
Track 21 years of news design history: See all the winners from the general competition in the SND Competition Database
Society for News Design
Society for News Design