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)

Design awards: Honorable mention for Times

It's that time of year when dozens of judges from the Society of Newspaper Design pore over the world's newspapers and decide which are the best looking. The five winners, who can now claim to be the world's best designed newspapers, were announced on Wednesday. They are:

Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden

Welt am Sonntag, Berlin, Germany 

Die Zeit, Hamburg, Germany

Politiken, Copenhagen, Denmark

The Grid, Toronto, Canada

You can see a slideshow of each one here.

As usual British newspapers were under-represented. I was pleased to see, though, that The Times received a well-deserved Judges' Special Recognition Award for its 'visual story telling' of the Olympics.

The judges said: "It’s that level of detail that really separates this from other entries. It’s clean, well thought-out, and so smart. It uses the medium incredibly well, and in such unique ways. It was the most thorough and consistent coverage we saw of the Games. A true Olympic effort — and all done on deadline." Well done to design editor @jonhilldesign and his team.

The Times also won a Gold Medal for Magazine Design for Eureka. The judges said it was 'both beautiful and explanatory'. It is also, sadly, no more. The 64-page science magazine closed last October after 37 issues.

Another paper that caught my eye was the Gulf News with its confident and detailed infographics. If you want to see more, you can plough through the many categories on the SND website.

The best designed newspapers in the world

The annual awards for the world's best designed newspapers have just finished. The top prizes in the Society of News Design's 33rd annual competition went to the Excelsior (Mexico), the National Post and The Grid (both Canada), Politiken (Denmark) and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (Germany). There are some innovative pages as always so it's certainly worth a look around the SND site.

Meanwhile, here are a few of my thoughts and observations:

i) The winners are all expansive, graphic, fond of white space, not obsessed with story count ... and there isn't a single advert in sight (honestly, not one).

ii) All are worth a look but the National Post from Toronto (above) really catches the eye - bold and original work here.   

iii) There were 10,131 entries from 39 countries.

iv) The US had the most category winners with 338.

v) It's the fifth year in a row that UK newspapers have failed to really impress. We had eight category winners out of 717, which made us 12th in the countries' league table, but none made it to the last 24 in the top category. The Independent on Sunday was awarded two Awards of Excellence in the breaking news category for its pages on the Japanese Earthquake and the Norwegian massacre, the FT won a clutch of awards for its magazine pages and the Sunday Herald in Glasgow also picked up an Award of Excellence.

vi) The last UK newspaper to be named as one of the world's best was The Guardian in 2007. Previous UK newspapers named in the category include The Guardian (2005, 2007), Independent on Sunday (2001, 2002, 2003), the Glasgow Herald (2003), The European (1997), The Scotsman (1994, 1996, 1997) and The Daily Telegraph (1994, 1995).

vii) Arab newspaper design has made great strides this year with Oman (49) and UAE (35) coming in as the third and fourth countries behind America and Canada. I worked with some young journalist at the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan last year and the increasing importance they put on design is evident. Mario Garcia takes a particular look at the pages from the Times of Oman here and there is a neat slide show here.

 

viii) Garcia also highlights the excellent infographics of Simon Scarr of the South China Morning Post which received nine awards.

xi) Finally, I was surprised, when looking through the SND site to find an American judge leading the discussion on the Washington Post's business page which won a Gold Medal in the business page design category. Here is the video.

What had me perplexed was the fact is he is wearing a Newcastle United shirt from the 2006-2007 season. A bit of digging and I found out he is Steve Cavendish @scavendish, editor of the City Paper in Nashville and a committed Newcastle United fanatic. We made contact on Twitter and he says he was captivated by "the Entertainers" in the Keegan years and has been a fan ever since. Steve joins an illustrious band of Toon Army hacks including myself, David Bourn, Paul Robertson, Chris Rushton, Tim Williams, Richard Bowyer, Laurie Allsopp, Neil Hacking, Ged Clarke, Mark Duell ... but so far he is the only international one I have heard of. If you know of any others, please let me know.

Footnote: Astonishingly, since I originally wrote this, South China Morning Post graphic artist Simon Scarr has been in touch (see comment below) to say he too is a Newcastle supporter. Any more?

World's best designed papers?

The world's best designed newspapers were named this week. Two of the top three are German, all are big read newspapers with traditional titlepieces, serif display and have swathes of space to play with. There isn't a tabloid or compact to be seen. Equally scarce are any advertisements. The winners, chosen, from 240 entries, are der Freitag (Berlin), Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and The New York Times. It's a real accolade for der Freitag which is a weekly with a circulation  of 12,400. Take a look at the pages in detail on Flickr on Society for News Design and let us know what you think.