The world's 17 best-looking newspapers?

It’s that time of year again when the world’s best designed newspapers are chosen by a panel of five judges in Syracuse, New York. This year they have drawn up a shortlist of 17 with the final five to be announced at a gala evening at The Newseum in April where the world’s best designed apps and websites will also be announced. I have long-followed the Society for Newspaper Design’s competition, applauding the recognition it gives to talented newspaper designers from around the world. This year the list is full of the usual suspects. All bar one of last year’s top five are included in the 17. They are Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Grid (Canada), Welt am Sonntag (Germany) and The Guardian. Only Germany’s Die Zeit is missing. Four of those, along with Denmark’s Politiken, were winners in 2013 and a couple of winners from 2012, Canada’s National Post and Mexico’s Excelsior, are back in favour. The judges, of course, say that is because 'the best have a way of rising to the top regardless of who is doing the tasting'.
They are probably right. But I fear it is all becoming a little predictable. Many on the shortlist are lavish feature pages - almost magazines in newsprint - with barely an advert in sight. They look splendid of course, and I appreciate the design is about the art of the page, but is there not room for some tabloid (dare I say it) red-top grittiness? I was also slightly disappointed that the recent resurgence in Asian newspaper design (particularly from The Times of Oman, South China Morning Post, the Gulf News) has not seen any of them burst into the top 17.
The Times of Oman did however, deservedly, receive a judges' Special Recognition, award for indefatigable creativity in its World Cup coverage for this:

All of that said, there are some cracking pages on the shortlist. Top marks to SND for organising it and congratulations to The Guardian for reaching the top 17. Looking at the shortlist, it must have an excellent chance of being in the top five again. Anyway, make your own mind up. Here's the top 17.

Dagens Nyheter (Sweden)

Die Welt (Germany)

De Volkskrant (Netherlands)

De Morgen (Belgium)

Excelsior (Mexico)

Folha de São Paulo (Brazil)

The Guardian (UK)

Informação (Portugal)

La Nacion (Argentina)

 Los Angeles Times (US)

The National Post (Canada)

New York Times (US)

Politiken (Denmark)

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)

The Grid (Canada)

The Washington Post (US)

Welt am Sonntag (Germany)

Guardian wins 'best in world' design award

Congratulations to The Guardian which has been named as one of the best designed newspapers in the year in the Society of Newspaper Design awards. According to the judges the best five designed newspaper in the world in 2013 were:

The Guardian, UK
Dagens Nyheter, Sweden
Die Zeit, Germany
The Grid, Canada
Welt am Sonntag, Germany

It's a rare accolade for British newspapers. The last time a UK paper won the top award was in 2007. It was The Guardian that triumphed then too.
All of the other four winners were included in last year's top five. The Guardian is the only newcomer, muscling out Denmark's Politiken. The judges say that is because 'the best have a way of rising to the top regardless of who is doing the tasting'. The Independent, Independent on Sunday and the FT made it into the last 29. The judges in the 35th annual The Best of News Design competition, which was held at Syracuse University in New York, were looking for:

• A timeless design

• A strong voice

• A bold approach

• An apparent hierarchy

• A design that serves the readers

• Visuals that excite

• Good ideas

• Consistency

• Courage

Take a look at a neat slideshow of the winners here.

Some of the most spectacular work, though, was in other sections. Here are a few designs that caught my eye. 

Excelsior of Mexico

Adolfo Arranz of the South China Morning Post (silver medal)

Infographics of Berlin, Germany (silver medal)

Khaleej Times, Dubai (award of excellence)

Gulf News, Dubai (silver medal)

The Grid, Canada (silver medal)

The New York Times (award of excellence)

Sir Alex dominates the front pages

It's rare that a sports story makes it on to every national front page … the tabloids and the qualities. But Sir Alex Ferguson deserves it. The best manager English football has ever seen. I say it through gritted teeth of course. He out-psyched Kevin Keegan and probably robbed me of ever seeing Newcastle United being league champions. More recently he referred to Newcastle as a 'wee club in the North-East'. Ouch. But there is no disputing his record. He was simply the best.

The Manchester Evening News, as expected, pulled out all of the stops with a special late edition yesterday afternoon - real evening paper stuff. It carried a dignified, respectful photograph of Sir Alex with a breaking news banner, 'Sir Alex quits'.

This morning it carries a bumper edition with a 32-page souvenir tribute. It should certainly sell out - at least in one half of the city. The MEN, like many newspapers, goes for a play on Fergie Time - a neat and pointed reference to Sir Alex's successor, David Moyes.

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Fergie Time is everywhere today so credit to The Daily Telegraph, which first speculated that the Glaswegian's reign was over, for being first with the headline as well as the story. This was the front page of its sports section yesterday morning. 

The Evening Standard, like the MEN, went for a breaking-news headline as the speculation became reality. It was a classic evening newspaper story. The Standard simply used 'Fergie Quits' with a great picture of the man in triumphant pose. Even in London, the Manchester manager was massive news.

Of today's front pages, The Sun has the most original image … a Red Devils' hairdryer hung-up in the Old Trafford dressing room for the very last time. No blurb, no second story … respect indeed. It's bold and nicely done. What the non-footballing readers will make of it is anyone's guess - but a classy page nonetheless.  

The Daily Star also went for the Fergie Time line … but it is really selling on something else altogether. Football and a naked Kate Moss - almost the perfect Star front.

The other angle, perhaps a more subtle one than the Fergie Time pun, is that Sir Alex is quitting for the sake of his wife. The Daily Mirror and Daily Express don't feel the story is worthy of the lead … there was after all the Tia Sharp murder trial and the Queen's speech to deal with ... but both give Lady Ferguson a deserved front page moment. 

It is no surprise that the Daily Mail chooses not to lead on Sir Alex ... you would be hard pushed to find many football splashes in the paper's history. It gives the story main picture prominence though. The Mail also goes for the female touch - Cathy by her man's side - and suggests he might be elevated to the peerage.

The Guardian uses a strong, vertically cropped and beaming picture of Sir Alex with a lively blurb promising a 20-page supplement. 

The Daily Telegraph also uses a blurb promising a 16-page pullout - labelled simply The Greatest, with contributions by Henry Winter, Paul Hayward and Alan Hansen. Sounds like a must-buy. It uses a dignified photo, on the left rather than the right, to give it more depth and put it squarely in the page's entry point. There's a nice quote too: 'He could have been a great leader in any field he chose. Manchester United were lucky he chose football.'

The icing on the cake in the Telegraph comes with Matt - as dry as ever.

The Times, perhaps surprisingly, limits the story to the blurb. I was half-expecting a wraparound.

Still, there's a quality 12-page pullout to look forward to.

  

The i also relegates Fergie to the blurb. There is, let's not forget, the small matter of the Queen's speech.

Football of course is also a big business story - a point not missed by The Independent: '£80m wiped off shares by the end of Fergie Time.'

Sir Alex also makes it on to the front pages of the Financial Times and the International Herald Tribune. A rare occasion indeed.

In the sports sections there is only one story. Well done again the Telegraph, which has been ahead of the story throughout. The Chosen One is a good headline, used by others on the back pages, but it is the picture that makes it. Perfect choice.

The Telegraph goes big on pictures inside too, including this season-by-season spread on Sir Alex's record. Nice.

They are as committed to Premier League football over the water, as we are in England ... so no surprise that the Irish titles went to town too. Here's a strong cover from the Irish Independent's 12-page tribute supplement. Using the stats on Page 1 is a nice touch: '104 players bought' and '14 Manchester City managers seen off'.

There are some cracking pages today, marking the end of a 26-year era and the beginning of another. Hopefully, it will be one that sees other teams finally having a crack at Premier League domination. Newcastle United perhaps ...

Hat tip to #tomorrowspaperstoday, @suttonnick 

Stunning cover by Boston Magazine

Here is a stunning front cover by Boston Magazine. The shoes all really belong to runners in the marathon. The story behind the cover is as amazing as the design itself. Read about it here.

A look at the design of the Obama pages

So here's the dilemma. It's a huge story and you are laying out the front page. But you know that every other newspaper is going to lead on the same tale. The main image has to be a man in a suit. It is likely to be a library picture in most cases too (note the array of ties) unless you get something decent on the wires. And you really only have half a dozen headline options. You are also up against it on deadline. So how do you make your page better than the rest? Well some of the designers on the other side of the Atlantic certainly had a go. Here is my look at some of their pages.

This is as straight as they come from The Standard Times. A square, badly-cropped picture with more suit than expression and a headline that feels the need to remind readers what Obama's first name is. And why the index on Page 1? It's probably been thrown together as the result emerged but some forward planning would have led to a bolder page.

The Washington Post's free paper, Express, goes for another square picture and the world's biggest one-word headline. There's no doubting the impact ... although the picture could have been cropped tighter. His head is just too small, perched on his huge name.

The Panama City News Herald's choice of picture doesn't really capture the moment. Obama looks like a fairly ordinary face in a blurry crowd - and is barely the main focus. There are an awful lot of words to explain how nothing has really changed.

This is a very powerful page top - one that looks like it has been properly designed. The picture is atmospheric and captures some of the emotion. The votes on either side of The Reporter's titlepiece work well. Again a one-word name headline is seen to suffice.

Here's a similar crop of the same picture in Town Talk from Louisiana. The same one-word headline, only this time above the photograph. I prefer the serif lower case, which doesn't overpower the image. Pity about the advert. 

The Examiner in San Francisco captures the mood in both its choice of picture and its headline. This was not the elation of four years ago, it was more relief. The sombre picture and understated headline tell the story well while retaining impact. Nice job.

The Canadian paper The Province, based in Vancouver, does it better though. It clears the front page of the clutter which allows it to use the same statesman-like photo much bigger. The headline would have been my choice too ... it's what Obama said. Very stylish.

If you are going to use a library headshot as the main picture, then the key is crop it well. The crop in Newsday is nice and tight (no suit) and the smile sits perfectly in the centre of the frame. A strong headline too. The second story might look like an advert but is an effective way of recognising that in Long Island, election or no election, there is still a weather crisis.

The Virginian Pilot's crop is nice and tight too, neatly bleeding the face off the edge with a slight cutout around the masthead. The organised clutter at the bottom of the page works and, if you are going for a one-word, 'encore' works better than just 'Obama'. I would worry a little about white text out of yellow on newsprint and the width of the body text - but overall this is an impressive cover.

Boston's Metro has the tightest crop of them all but the clutter detracts from the creative use of the image. The red at the top of the page is potentially the first thing the readers sees. Obama tweeted 'four more years' but it doesn't need the quotes around the headline. And the titlepiece competes with the heading. Pity, because the use of the photograph is very effective. 

   
The other way of displaying a man in a suit is to choose a picture with some animation. The Chicago Sun-Times skies a live photograph of Obama's victory wave. It could have been tighter and the hand might have just cut into the titlepiece but it certainly has impact. The headline, a Stevie Wonder song title, is original and sums it all up nicely.

A cutout is an option that needs be considered every time you do a page. It works OK on the Farmington Daily Times, adding white space to a very busy page. The picture looks as though the president is leaving on an aeroplane and is clearly a library shot. There is a lot of brown suit too. For a big news story such as this, there are just too many other things going on.

The Orange County Register also uses a cutout. The suit is kept to a minimum and Obama certainly looks presidential. The OCR is well-known for its graphics, and it really goes to town on the data. One for the analysts. It too goes for the one-word 'Obama' headline (although the exclamation mark is superfluous).

The Sandusky Register goes for a full-page picture. No suit, no tie ... so clearly from the library. It is bold but perhaps there is too much white shirt. It is also let down a little by the headline, with its fussy outline and the over-use of blue type at the top of the page.

The Clarion Ledger also uses a fuller picture of Obama. It's not as big as the Sandusky Register's picture and could have come in a little tighter, taking his finger into the text. But the page looks like it has been properly laid out. The use of red, black and white is a tried and tested combination. There is a good structure to the page, a clear bold headline, two subdecks, then the photo with the cross refs at the bottom. Nice scaling, stylish page.

Then there is the option to do something a little different - a photograph from the back. This was an approach widely used when Gordon Brown left Downing Street two years ago. I am not sure it works too well in the Charleston Gazette  though. There seems to be a lot of trouser and sky (perhaps that's symbolic) and I wouldn't have sliced the president off at the ankles. There are a lot of sunglasses in the crowd for November ... but I guess it is South Carolina.

The Stockton Record uses a live picture of Obama at his victory speech in Chicago. It is an atmospheric alternative and, with its confident wide crop, looks newsier than the library shots. The headline in three different sizes works on two levels. After the confident top, the page drifts off into a more traditional local, serif appearance with a lot of grey.

The family picture, for those whose deadline allowed, is a no-brainer. It's simply a great photograph. But the San Francisco Chronicle could have cropped it tighter, coming in on the sides and taking more from the bottom. Adding the word 'It's' is merely a way of padding out the headline.

The Ventura County Star's picture is a sharper angle, we can see all the faces  now, and comes in much tighter. A strong, clear headline across the top works too. 

This is the same picture as the Ventura County Star but the crop in the Pensacola News Journal is tighter still, covers a bigger area and is used higher up the page. The headline is neatly placed, any bigger and it would encroach too far on the photo. This is a well-structured page.

The Boston Herald goes for shape over content and ends up cropping off Michelle. It's bold enough though and the cutout hand is a nice touch (although not the exclamation mark). Not sure the motifs in the headline work either.

The Ottawa Sun - or the tawa Sun as it becomes during Remembrance time - has a smashing crop on a variation of the picture. It also has a clever tabloid headline. It just needs to be 24pt smaller so Sasha doesn't turn into a floating head.

This is my favourite of the family treatments, and probably my favourite of all the US papers. It demonstrates that simple layout prevails. Choose the right picture, crop it well, use it big, write an effective headline but don't let it dominate the photograph. Scale the secondary information, level it off and use the white space wisely. The cutout is a nice touch. Well done the Bakersfield Californian.

The UK newspapers had a little longer to put their pages together. The Times and The Sun changed their late editions (see previous post) when the results came in but it wasn't until Thursday morning that they could really offer complete coverage. 

The Daily Mail used a tight crop on the family picture across the full width with a trademark speech bubble headline. By Thursday morning everyone knew who won, so the Mail leads on a splash that hits at the heart of its market. 

The i uses a much looser crop on the sides but coming up from the bottom to Michelle's arm is a good call. The picture is dominated by the headline, and the paper's busy bits and pieces, but it's neatly done nonetheless.

The Independent chooses a tender picture of Obama and Michelle and lets it take over almost the entire page, using the residual black to excellent effect. 'The tenacity of hope' is a poignant label that made me want to read the story (the sole purpose of a headline). It sits on top of a great read by Rupert Corwnall but a write-off rather than a turn line might have worked better. I turned straight to Page 4 to find out why something 'fascinating and profound' had happened ... and forgot to revisit Pages 2 and 3. I guess I wasn't alone. Not sure why the Hillsborough cross-ref needs to be in bright magenta but I love the titlepiece, lifted from the colour of the tie.

The Times was bound to do a wrap ... and here it is. There are a lot more words than its usual approach - a front page comment - and the back is just ticker-tape. Having committed to a wrap it couldn't really use the family picture as it would have split them in half. The gatefold graphic on the inside of the wrap was simply wonderful. If you haven't seen it, get a back copy.

The Guardian offers a lesson in effective layout. It chooses the right picture, crops it as tight as it will go and uses it across the full width at the top of the page. The strongest quote is the headline but it sits underneath, where it doesn't interfere with the picture. There are plenty of words but thoughtful typography and white space make it very readable. Simple.

Finally, elsewhere in the world The Daily Star in Lebanon caught the eye. It went to press before the result was known so it created a mirror front page. The reader could then simply flip it once the result was known.

Clever. Although maybe the Star meant something else altogether - such as whoever won it wasn't really going to make a great deal of difference. 

Front pages courtesy of www.newseum.org/ and @suttonnick #tomorrowspaperstoday