The Los Angeles Times and its magazine won 109 awards, while The New York Times and its magazines claimed 85.

Next up were Toronto’s National Post, 51; The Boston Globe and its magazine and the St. Petersburg Times, 37 each; Zaman of Istanbul, 28; the Chicago Tribune and its magazine 27; the Hartford Courant and The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, 25 each.

The Virginian-Pilot earned 24 awards, as did El Mundo Magazine and El Mundo Metropoli, combined. Twenty-one awards apiece went to the Dallas Morning News and San Jose Mercury News, while Politiken of Copenhagen and the San Francisco Chronicle each received 19.

The Toronto Star, Buffalo News and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette received 15 awards each and Today’s Zaman* of Istanbul earned 14.

The Rocky Mountain News won 13 awards, while 12 each went to Clarín of Buenos Aires, The Guardian in London, Prensa Grafica in San Salvador, Fort Lauderdale’s South Florida Sun-Sentinel and The Washington Post.

The Denver Post and Público of Lisbon each earned 11 awards, while The Seattle Times and Centro of Mexico City received 10 each.

Geographic diversity also reigned among the smallest-circulation newspapers, which together earned 144 awards.

Of the winning newspapers with circulations of less than 50,000:

23 papers were from the United States

23 from elsewhere..

10 from Mexico

3 from Spain

2 from Turkey

2 from Romania

And 1 each from Brazil, Canada, England, Estonia and Sweden.

* This year, Zaman submitted an English-language newspaper — Today’s Zaman — with a circulation smaller than Zaman. Think of it along the same lines as Link in Norfolk, or RedEye in Chicago.

** These results may differ from earlier reports that were based on initial, unaudited database results. The Blog regrets any confusion.

1,166 awards, including four ‘World’s Best-Designed™’ Newspapers, released

North Kingstown, R.I. — In its 29th annual “The Best of Newspaper Design™ Creative Competition,” the Society for News Design has named four “World’s Best-Designed Newspapers™” and issued 1,162 other design awards for journalism published in 2007. The winners came from 14,818 entries submitted by 373 daily and nondaily newspapers around the world.

In a new topic, two Awards of Excellence were given for coverage of global warming, to Publico in Madrid and Dagens Industri in Stockholm.

This year’s “World’s Best-Designed Newspapers™” are:

• Akzia in Moscow, bi-weekly, circulation 200,000

• Expresso in Paco de Arcos, Portugal, weekly, circulation 140,000

• Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in Frankfurt, Germany, weekly, circulation 320,000

• The Guardian in London, daily, circulation 355,750.

Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung and The Guardian were honored previously as “World’s Best-Designed Newspapers™”. Judges said they sought consistency as one key in evaluating the 343 entries in that category.

In the 18 other competition categories, judges awarded eight Gold medals, 28 Silver medals, four Judges’ Special Recognitions and 1,122 Awards of Excellence.

“Judges selected only the very best entries to win medals,” said C. Marshall Matlock, competition and judging director for the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and the competition committee director for SND. “It’s a busy time for the industry and an exciting year for design. It’s gratifying so many good designs were honored for 2007’s work. It speaks well for design and newsrooms from around the world, and continues to make the Society’s competition the most prestigious in the world.”

The competition, co-sponsored by SND and the Newhouse School, recognizes excellence in newspaper design, graphics and photography. Former news designer Greg Swanson, promotion and marketing executive for Extreme Challenge Mixed Martial Arts, served as the 29th Edition competition coordinator. Judges from around the globe met in two stages over two long weekends in February at the Newhouse School in Syracuse, N.Y.

Gold medals were awarded to the Los Angeles Times for Genaro’s Molina’s portrait photo of Joyce Simms Wood and two multiple-photo projects; the Plain Dealer in Cleveland for an Andrea Levy illustration on taxes; The San Francisco Chronicle for an entertainment package, “The Price of Fun”; The New York Times for an entertainment page on the new season; The New York Times Magazine for a photo series on great performers; and The Guardian in London for a feature spread on the story of O.J. Simpson and the Goldman family.

The top winner in all 19 categories was the Los Angeles Times and its magazine, with109 awards;

Of the 193 newspapers from 33 countries that earned awards, the United States led with 707 awards, followed by 92 for Canada, 65 for Mexico, 43 for Turkey, 42 for Spain, 23 each for Argentina and El Salvador, 21 each for Germany, Brazil and Sweden, 20 for Denmark, 18 for England, and14 for Portugal.

Other award winners included newspapers from Australia, China, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Italy, Japan, Norway, Peru, Poland, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates.

The 14,818 entries were up from last year’s 13,862, but less than the high of 15,020 entries in 2005. Judges honored 1,166 winners, fewer than the 1,748 in 2007, and more than the 1,135 in 2006 and 1,082 in 2005. Newspapers of less than 50,000 circulation earned 144 awards in this year’s competition.

The four judges for the “World’s Best-Designed Newspapers™” category, who made their choices Feb. 15-19, were:

• Michael Adams, art director, Basler Zeitung, Basel, Switzerland

• John Belknap, creative director, The Jewish Chronicle, London

• Tim Goheen, art director, McClatchy-Tribune, Washington, DC

• Christopher P. Winner, editor and publisher, The American magazine, Rome.

The 27 judges for the general competition, who met Feb. 9-11, were:

• Kerri Abrams, senior designer/news design department, The Dallas Morning News

• Staci Andrews, designer, The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

• Ramachandra Babu, illustrator, Gulf News, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

• Reagan Branham, page designer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch

• Vince Chiaramonte, art director Sports/Features, The Buffalo (N.Y.) News

• Brian Scott Ching, art director, The Sacramento (Calif.) Bee

• Pablo Corral Vega, photographer, Quito, Ecuador

• Amanda Cox, graphics editor, The New York Times

• Linda Grist Cunningham, executive editor, Rockford (Ill.) Register Star

• Rick Epps, news design editor, The Detroit News

• Vladdo Florez, director, News + Design, Miami

• Susan Gilbert, A.M.E./administration and operations, San Francisco Chronicle

• Claudia Alexandra Guillén Arruda, assistant professor, Universidad Peruana de Ciencios Apricadas, Lima, Peru

• Karla Garrett Harshaw, editor, Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun

• Neil Hopp, director of student media, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Mich.

• Hans-Peter Janisch, consultant/faculty, Grossenlueder, Germany

• Marek Knap, head art director, Edipresse Polska, Warsaw

• Karl Kuntz, M.E./graphics, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch

• Kenney Marlatt, designer, The Indianapolis Star

• Steve McKinstry, graphics team leader, The Oregonian, Portland

• Chris Morris, art director, Las Vegas Sun

• Pai, graphics director, San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News

• Leslie Plesser, art director, Minneapolis Star Tribune

• Bill Pliske, senior editor/presentation, The Arizona Republic, Phoenix

• Julie Simon, graphics and features design editor, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

• Chris Snider, editor, Juice & dmJuice.com, Des Moines, Iowa

• Kelli Sullivan, deputy design director/news projects, Los Angeles Times.

The winners are listed in a searchable database at http://www.snd.org/competitions/contest29.lasso. Images of the winning entries will be added in a few weeks. Coverage from both competition weekends can be seen at www.snd.org/update. The top award winners will be honored during the Society’s 30th Annual Workshop and Exhibition in Las Vegas, Sept. 7-9. Winners and the judges’ comments will be showcased in the 29th Edition book, “The Best of Newspaper Design™,” available this fall.

The Society for News Design is an international professional organization with a mission to enhance communication around the world through excellence in visual journalism. The Society, founded in 1979, has more than 2,000 professional, educator and student members in 52 countries. To learn more, visit http://www.snd.org.

Overall judges’ statement:

If print is dead, it’s a pretty lively corpse. We examined 343 dailies and weeklies. We sought consistency, intelligence and strong visual storytelling. At the same time, we looked for innovation and made ourselves available to surprises. By categories, here is a small sample of what we found, summaries that speak to our goals.

Consistency

We liked the Guardian’s section-by-section consistency. Its coverage of the Benazir Bhutto assassination wed strong headlines to striking photography, giving the event a dramatic but respectful visual structure. The Guardian is a repeat winner because it does every day what others might take a week or more to accomplish. It is a paradigm of excellence and endurance. Intelligence

We liked an illustration of a bicycle rider in the German weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The story concerned doping at the Tour de France. The caricature seamlessly introduced the topic. Time and again, pages were confident, vibrant and amusing. What some designers might have shrunk, the paper enlarged, and vice versa. Those of us unfamiliar with German were still drawn in. We just wanted to know more. This alone is a triumph.

Surprise

We liked a large and striking portrait in the Lisbon weekly Expresso. The story concerned what lies ahead for Portugal in 2008. Analysts Jorgé Pacheco Pereira and António Barreto were pictured, seemingly life-size, while chatting in a hotel garden. Suddenly, we became the third person in their private conversation. Expresso regularly displayed this kind of intimacy and crafty intelligence.

Courage

We liked a photograph of a graveyard for airplane parts in the Moscow bi-weekly Akzia. The sepia tone of aircraft hulks in the desert was haunting, giving the reader pause. We found unconventional typography and layouts that exuded enthusiasm. Most important was a kind of fearlessness. Akzia is a rule-breaker that gets it right. Consistency, intelligence, surprise and courage: We sought these characteristics everywhere. That’s what our four winners gave us.

Long live print. Christopher Winner, The American magazine

Tim Goheen, MCT Graphics

Paper-by-paper statements:

Loosely translated, Akzia’s mission statement advertises it as an energetic paper aimed at Moscow’s young working professionals. Akzia’s rule-breaking cadence exudes frenzy and fizz. The easy way is not Akzia’s way, suggesting a creative backlash that may or may not be intended. A front page displaying a bent airplane propeller doesn’t immediately give away the subject matter, but intrigues. A teaser for a story on mobile phones is a hidden nugget. Typography is edgy and changeable: The designers revel in using type as an illustration. Images and photographs are sprawling and offbeat; time and again the unexpected takes stage center.

Akzia struck us as an atypical diamond in the rough that comes together through clever ideas and sheer force of passion. It’s compact, frenetic and refreshing.

Expresso is gentle and graceful. Cleanly designed pages are anchored by unusual graphics and powerful images that put an ingenuous and playful stamp on storytelling. Portugal’s National Environmental Month was illustrated by a winding green vine rising bottom to top on the front page and continuing throughout the issue — a remarkable twist.

Gentleness and intimacy are evident in photography, frequently large, up-close and beautifully reproduced. Expresso tells readers it’s in the loop and wants to take them along for the ride. Audacious spreads are playful. An ad with a donkey bled from one page to the adjoining one, with the unsuspecting donkey suddenly finding itself the target of a rifleman in an editorial photo. It’s a visual pun we’d like to think was intentional. It’s also a nod to confident, irreverent designers.

Simply put, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung is consistently among the most elegant newspapers on the planet. Its writing, graphics, images and photographs — each aspect beautifully conceived and presented — epitomize sublime intelligence.

Expressive eloquence depends on simplicity. Headlines are pithy. Giant displays confidently say, “Now, look at this!” Inside pages are treated with the same care as fronts. Black and white is mixed effortlessly with color. Tints are discreetly limited. Nothing is left to chance. Even the television and film listings, often left to their own devices elsewhere, are illustrated by drawings. These little touches demonstrate an in-built and winning attention to detail.

The Guardian is a well-oiled machine that proves you don’t have to be a weekly to consistently generate depth. Headlines are clarion calls, or more subtle when appropriate. Typography is modulated based on the subject matter. Color is richly present but never suffocates. The Guardian serves up that most delicious of newspaper paradoxes: It is both consistent and varied. Impeccable, easy-to-understand graphics appear beside more personal cultural reports. News pages mix formality with energy. Intimate photography, in the main section and supplements, is consistently stunning — images of race car driver Lewis Hamilton and actress Maggie Gyllenhaal come to mind. Yet this all feels part of the same package, which is high praise.

Also superlative is the paper’s coherent narration of local and international crises. Features, culture and special sections take on a life of their own that’s vivid but never disconnected from the paper’s energetic mainframe. The design is a great sandbox of a newspaper, where both adults and children can play. The Guardian is very much on top of its world.

(NOTE: The above photo was mildly digitally edited to obscure a winning entry. No actual entries were harmed in this process.)

SND29: Christopher Winner, a judge’s journal from Society for News Design on Vimeo.

John Belknap:

SND29: John Belknap, a judge’s journal from Society for News Design on Vimeo.

Tim Goheen:

SND29: Tim Goheen, a judge’s journal from Society for News Design on Vimeo.

Michael Adams:

SND29: Michael Adams, a judge’s journal from Society for News Design on Vimeo.

We expect the web-cam to be back on-line later today, and of course, we’ll be back Tuesday for The Big Announcement at 2 p.m. — tune in to see who the judges will select as the WB winners!

Following a brief lunch break, discussion of the World’s Best-Designed Newspaper finalists resumes this bleary Sunday afternoon. (The judges don’t mind being trapped in the Sheraton’s Waverly room right now since it’s raining, gray and nearly 40 degrees (F) outside… yes, balmy by Syracuse standards.) Since we’re in a sensitive stage of the final round and there will be lots of looking at newspapers, etc., the streaming web-cam will go off-line for the rest of Sunday while the judges finalize their opinions and selections.

We expect to be back on-line Monday as final statements are prepared, and of course, we’ll be back Tuesday for The Big Announcement — tune in to see who the judges will select as the WB winners!

Six. Seis. VI.

That’s all that remains in the World’s Best-Designed Newspaper (TM) Competition. The finalists are now on the table for review, judges are pushing ahead and discussing where they are headed now. Rest assured they will then tell us what set these six apart.

Since the judges have made such terrific time getting through the entries (they are at least a day ahead of “pace”), they have lots of flexibility to dig into the remaining newspapers — and that’s exactly what they intend to do. No voting is expected for a while; lots of review and discussion is.

If you’ve been cruising the streaming web-cam (linked to the right), you’ll notice that this morning’s view is somewhat odd. Don’t worry, the camera is working — in fact we did some testing earlier to improve the feed for the announcements to come Tuesday — but since the judges are actually looking at the final Round Three entries, holding them up, sharing them, discussing with each other and whatnot, we need to avert our eyes until they are done with their deliberations. We’ll adjust the view as soon as we can.

We do expect to be able to relay their final announcements on Tuesday. Watch The Blog for exact details and continued updates.

At the end of the second day of the World’s Best-Designed portion of the Best of Newspaper Design Competition we wondered what it was the judges were looking for specifically. So we asked them each: “What makes a World’s Best-Designed Newspaper?”

SND competition director C. Marshall Matlock breaks down where things stand on Day 2 of the World’s Best judging.

The judges have retired for the evening — surely visions of newspapers will dance in their heads. The streaming web-cam has been shrouded. The downloading and editing continues. And we brace for the news of the 2007 World’s Best.

The second round allows each judge to speak for or against the publication being discussed. Each succeeding round – and there could be one or two more before the final discussion and vote – is expected to take much more time because of the thoroughness of those discussions.

Judges could take several hours reviewing, reading, asking questions and discussing the pros and cons of each remaining newspaper after they finish round two.

While judges work to make sure only the very best publications remain in the competition, facilitators are doing research to get answers to questions that judges may ask about a publication that remains in the competition. In almost all cases the questions are about an international entry.

“It’s impressive to see how far the judges go to make sure they have the information needed as they head towards the goal of selecting the final winners,” said Marshall Matlock, the competition and judging director for SU and SND.

“There is much to be done, but judges have returned from lunch and are back grooving.”

Look out for “video confessional”postings later today once The Blog gets a chance to hear from the judges themselves.

Motivators are key on Day Two of the competition. Each judge will now thoroughly review each of the 48 remaining entries on the topics of design, writing, visual storytelling, use of resources, execution, photography, headlines and the ever-popular “voice.”

At this point, any previous votes that landed an entry in this second round no longer matter. The first cut got you in the door, but at this point it will take three out of four votes to stay in the pool — everyone else will be removed. Votes will come later by a show of hands, one paper at a time.

“When we get down to what looks like the very last round it will be voted by secret paper ballot,” said C. Marshall Matlock, competition coordinator. This is to remove any untoward pressure on the judges.

So, with the promise of barbecue far off on the horizon, we’re under way.