The 39th Best of News Design Creative Competition will be held Feb. 24-26, 2018 in St. Petersburg, Fla. The 39th Edition Call for Entries can be found here.
The competition is for work published in 2017. Categories remain unchanged from previous years, with minor updates to reflect the news of 2017. But there is a major change to the competition format aimed at alleviating one of the most significant barriers to entering — entries may now be submitted either as tearsheets or printouts.
Entries will still be judged in person, on tables, as in the previous 38 years, but outlets may choose which format to submit. No longer will studios or individuals who may not have access to their publications archives face the task of tracking down back issues before they can enter.
The guidelines for submitting printed replicas of work are below, and outlined in the Call:
• Printouts must be unmounted, and in the case of multi-page entries, taped together and assembled accordion-style. (They will be judged next to tearsheets assembled this way, after all)
• Printouts must be at a size that is at least 75 percent of the size the entry ran. For broadsheet entries, this means a minimum of 11 x 17 paper.
• Printouts must be unmounted
• Printouts must run in the color state (CMYK or black-and-white) that the entry printed.
• Publications entering printouts should keep PDFs of their entries available through March, in case they are needed by the competition for documentation purposes.
• Wire services, agencies, freelancers or entrants wishing to share graphics, illustrations or photography that ran in print but only exist in digital formats should enter these in Category 19 Miscellaneous, with a note attached articulating at least one instance of the work appearing in print. The competition facilitators will ensure the work gets seen by the proper group of judges.
Tearsheets are accepted in the same manner as in previous years. Outlets wishing to enter the work exactly as it printed remain encouraged to do so.
As members, the competition committee is asking that we all do our part to share this and spread the word about SND39. In 2017, we all covered news that felt unprecedented in its scope and scale, and SND39 will aim to set new industry standards for reader service and visual journalism.
Non-English translations of The Call will be added to snd.org by the end of 2017.
Best of luck this year.
— The SND Print Competition Committee