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.