Tips for entering the creative competition

  • January 31, 2024
1080 551 Society for News Design

Gathering your entries for the 45th Society for News Design Competition? Here are some tips for both digital and print entries to help make your submission process as seamless as possible and set your entries up for judging success. 

We are currently accepting entries into the competition and the AwardForce submission portal is open. Entries must be submitted by Feb. 23 to get regular pricing standards, with a late entry period and raised entry fees from Feb. 24 to March 8.

For more tips on entering the contest, join our Creative Conference Call on Feb. 7 with Greg Mees, chair of the print design competition committee and Brian Gross of the digital design competition committee. These two competition veterans will provide best practices and valuable insight to ensure your entry is as strong as possible for the upcoming judging. This call is free and open to the public but you must register here to join if you are not an SND member. 

Below are criteria the judges will be using when evaluating entries, along with tips on what to include with each entry to properly describe its value.

Digital Competition

Judging perspectives

Each interdisciplinary judging team is made up of three judges, who will evaluate entries in these three areas:

  • Content: Data visualization, information graphics, animation, video, audio, etc.
  • Design: User experience, information architecture, usability, etc.
  • Development: Data analysis, programming, etc.

The judges’ evaluation criteria

News value: Does the presentation’s content pass the traditional test of newsworthiness? Have the designers clearly defined their audience? Is this event/project worth the investment of multimedia to tell the story? Is it ethical in its uses of technology? How well does it use community tools?

Editing: Does this presentation utilize the best ways to communicate with the audience? Were deliberate decisions made to utilize each form of media presentation-audio, video, text, still images, interactivity or the right development approach?

Information architecture: Is the presentation intuitive and informative? Are the designers aware of the information’s inherent structure? Do they understand and utilize it? Can relevant information be retrieved quickly? Is the interface easy to use?

Aesthetic presentation: Is the presentation well designed in terms of focus, organization, balance, proportion, contrast, unity and color use? Does the designer consider the frame of mind and expectations of the user? Does the design drive technology? Are all aesthetic decisions relevant to the news value of the presentation?

Innovation: How well does the entry use the unique, interactive features of multimedia? Is the presentation

Tips

Be clear about your role on pages by including a note in the description field, especially for portfolio entries and stories with multiple bylines/credits. Judges don’t have the background knowledge to parse out which pieces of a project you worked on, so make sure to use the entry notes field to highlight your contributions to a piece and why. Below are a couple anonymized examples of last year’s portfolio winners and how they did this.

Ex. 1

  • Project A. This project was the longest piece to run in our publication’s history at over 30,000 words. I worked with a developer to incorporate a navigation bar, sidebars and cast of characters to make it more digestible for readers.
  • Project B. Eight photographers were sent around the country to document this topic. I worked on the look and feel, typography, color palette, and conceptualizing the navigation bar.
  • Project C. Right after the related event, I pitched a project idea where we would gather input from around the country on this topic. We were quick to get this piece out in response to the news.

Ex. 2

  • Project A: Designer and developer, including some editing work on the narrative flow of the piece. Created illustrations that were used in the size comparison graphic. Designed the implementation of the social media elements that are embedded in the presentation.
  • Project B: Created the design elements and worked on the overall aesthetic and polish of the page. Collaborated with graphics reporters on how best to present the data in a visually appealing way.
  • Project C: Designer and developer. Incorporated side-scrolling components for section breaks and full-bleed visual flows to lean into the theme and give the reader a feeling of constant movement throughout the presentation.

Don’t think you can’t enter because your work isn’t using the latest technology or isn’t super interactive. Many organizations won awards in past years for excellent static graphics — for example, last year judges awarded a gold medal to Reuters’ biodiversity coverage, noting “there is a beauty in the simplicity, it does not feel like unnecessary digital tricks are used.” In the past, simply animated social cards and pages highlighting strong photography have also done well in the competition. If you think you have really strong web design and storytelling, regardless of how flashy it is, submit it.

If you’re a student, don’t be afraid to submit your work. Students have won in a variety of different categories in past years, for portfolios, experimental design, line of coverage on social media and more.

If it’s better for the submission, use an alternative submission technique. Most of the time, the work is self-explanatory. However, if there’s extra information the judges should know or you need to communicate particular usability, you can take videos of how social media was used, create a website for your submissions or make a slideshow about what makes your content excellent.

Note if it’s primarily designed for a particular platform (mobile especially). If a story was meant to only be experienced on mobile or on a tablet, write that down in the submission so that the judges are aware they need to use a particular device to experience the article.

Please note any other additional usage instructions for articles. If there are AR/VR components that require phones or physical objects (white paper or a smooth surface), include that in the comments, too, so that judges can be prepared and experience the story the way it was intended.

If particular parts of articles should be highlighted, whether that’s a portion of interactivity or additional video/multimedia, include that in the submission so the judges don’t miss out.

How digital are you? News designers have a range of roles, from mostly print to custom coding and everything in between. Do you design social cards to help promote stories? We have categories for that. Do you art direct illustrations or photos that are used with stories published online? That’s digital, and we have categories for that, too. 

We also have product categories for any landing pages, home pages, in-house storytelling tools and more. Have something that seems digital but is really unique? You can enter it in our Experimental Design category.

Work at a non-traditional media organization? In previous years, we had award winners from The Weather Channel and Kontinentalist, so even if you don’t work at a traditional news publication, you should definitely enter.

Print Competition

Judging perspectives

Each interdisciplinary judging team is made up of five judges, who will evaluate each entry based on how well it accomplishes its editorial and design objectives. In some categories, such as illustration or graphics, entries will be viewed for the individual element, not the entire page.

Tips

Single-element categories: If the category is evaluating only one element, identify it when entering. Do not mark or leave comments on the PDFs.

PDF submissions: The Best of Print News Design competition will accept only PDF entries this year. Entries must not be edited and must appear as they were published. If an entry was published in black and white, the PDF must also be entered in black and white. PDFs that have been altered after publication will be disqualified.

Make sure you follow the submission rules: Specialty publications, advertising, publicity and promotional materials are ineligible. Entries may be moved to another category or disqualified if they fail to follow the rules as outlined.