It’s all over in Syracuse! The judges are all heading home today, as well as all the hard-working facilitators and data entry folks. The World’s Best judges arrive later this week, and we’ll be bringing you live coverage of that judging as well. But enough chit-chat … you want to know the big winners, right? Well …
Here we go. The top 10 award winners, in order — actually, we’ll name 12 winners because of ties — the Los Angeles Times; The New York Times; National Post; Zaman (Turkey); St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times; The Boston Globe; The Plain Dealer, Cleveland; Hartford Courant; Chicago Tribune; Dallas Morning News; San Jose Mercury News; San Francisco Chronicle.
The judging groups awarded eight Gold medals — details were previously listed on this blog — three to the L.A. Times, one each to The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, and The Guardian. Of those, none of them were agreed upon by the entire judging panel as the Best of Show, and since that award must be unanimous, there is no Best of Show this year.
Here a couple of questions we all know you’ll be asking:
» WHEN’S THE DATABASE GOING TO BE AVAILABLE? It takes quite a while to compile and check the more than 1100 winners in the competition, but we’ll get it active as soon as we can. Hopefully around Feb. 20 … watch this site for more details.
» WORLD’S BEST? WHO’S WORLD’S BEST? For the first time this year, the World’s Best Designed newspapers will be judged after the main judging. So those five judges will convene next weekend in Syracuse. Those winners should be announced on Tuesday the 19th. We’ll have live coverage of that judging here at The Update Blog.
If you have other questions for us, please respond to this entry in the comments field. We’ll try to get to your questions as soon as possible. And tell us what you think about the coverage, and this new Update page as well! Did it work well for you? Let us know!
For the rest of your SND International Web Desk team … Tyson Evans, Melissa Angle, Bill Gaspard, Jonathon Berlin and Matt Mansfield, this is Scott Goldman, signing off from Syracuse!
The New York Times won a design award? For the newspaper?
Is there any award for Tabasco HOY? pleaseeeeeeeeee I´m dying here!!! haha
Does this leaking of awards makes sense?
No. Not at all.
But we need is the final full results in a quicker way.
We are in the information business.
And not in the entertainment one.
Well, I think the blog is ok… I like the poems.. it´s only the suspence that I can´t stand it.
To: Juan Antonio Giner (and others who’ve asked)…
As has been mentioned throughout the weekend, hopes are that the database of winners will be live as soon after the competition is as complete as possible—the largest entries (Category 1) are still yet to be judged this coming weekend.
Each year SND makes a concerted effort to be more transparent and immediate than ever before, but in addition to not wanting to influence the Category 1 judges’ thinking, posting the 1,162 results is a tad complex (typos need to be checked, databases cleaned, etc).
You would think as picky (neurotic) as they are with entry rules and as expensive as it is to enter, there would be a faster way to learn results.
It also hurts to see what they do with non-winners. I’d like to think there’s an option other than crunching them up and tossing them.
Steve (and others who’ve asked)
My point was that instead of leaking some winners, some of these “helpers” perhaps could be more productive helping to have a quicker final list than playing around.
And about the Category 1 issue, if we don’t want to influence the judges, first kill the leaking, stop the pictures and impose serious rules of conduct if we want to have a serious competition.
Right now it looks like a Third World contest where the inmates run the asylum.
J.A.G.:
I understand and appreciate your point, certainly.
And I’ll leave it to others to comment on how the helpers behaved, since I wasn’t in Syracuse this past weekend (I will be next weekend though). I would feel safe, however, in assuring you that all of the facilitators are carefully screened and trained, and have helped run the competition for years—they have served the industry with distinction and many have even been judges and edition coordinators themselves in the past. Many give their own time and expenses to volunteer to the organization repeatedly. I would not question their dedication or seriousness.
And while they may appear to be having some fun occasionally, it is well-intended and often the result of the limited down time between rounds of judging (rounds that can last more than 12 or 14 hours at a stretch some days).
Rest assured that when it comes time to judge and assist, these folks are all business. They know the rules inside and out and they make every effort for consistency and balance in the judging environment. Processing more than 14,000 entries in three days takes keen coordination and a determined focus across the board. If a little karaoke helps keep the troops moving along the way, so be it.
As for the alleged “leaking,” the limited sharing of select winners started a couple years ago as a way of offering members a sneak peek while the competition was still in-progress. Since the full results were not able to be posted instantaneously (partially due to the nature of the competition), this was a way to give a sense—somewhat randomly, but still—of how things were proceeding. Otherwise, ALL the coverage would have consisted ONLY of assistants counting colored chips, laying out unjudged pages, and cleaning up non-winning entries.
I appreciate your concerns and know that the Competition Committee and the Publications Group are interested in all the feedback we can get. We strive to improve the competition and our coverage of it every year. I encourage everyone to please continue to share their thoughts and to volunteer to help be a part of the process in the future.
So U.S. newspaper design continues to lead the world. But where to?
In Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico we are eager to know the results, considering that we will be able to obtain mention, since the team of design is very young and our redesign is two years old
Liz Huerta..... greetings and good luck
Steve,
I have been judge once and helper another time.
And nobody complains about them.
Again, what troubles me and others is this leaking tradition now in online version.
Sorry, but this must be stop.
Period.
And I am sure that many SND members will agree.
Estoy totalmente deacuerdo con el Dr Giner, esta falta de seriedad que en ocasiones demuestra este concurso tambien lleva a que muchos periodicos que en otros años aparte de ganar premios aportaban mucho al diseño de diarios, ya no participen, se deberia de tener en cuenta que si año con año muchos diseñadores se desvelan eligiendo lo mejor del años para enviar sus mejores trabajos, nutrimos las arcas de este concurso comprando libros, pagando seminarios y filiaciones, nosotros que somos los que hacemos la SND merecemos un mejor trato y mas respeto, seria bueno que la SND fuera un ente mas independiente y que no responda a los caprichos y demandas de gente que solo quiere vender mejor su trabajo y regresara a ser un ente mas pedagogico
Pablo, ¿podrías mencionarnos alguno de esos diarios que antes participaban y ya no lo hacen?
En el año 2000 tuvé la oportunidad de ser juez, y realmente puedo atestiguar que es una tarea exhaustiva, donde uno camina viendo miles de páginas (y caminando alrededor de las mesas donde se colocan las páginas) durante alrededor de 10 horas. Por eso mismo concedo que si se tiene algo de distracción, como un karaoke y un par de cervezas después de la larga jornada de trabajo, puede ayudar a mantener la mente fresca y despejada para al dia siguiente seguir con el proceso de calificación.
señor adrian le dice algo El diriario Reforma de su Pais? El norte que fue la base para el diseño de muchos diario de su pais y cuna de muchos buenos diseñadores mexicanos? Mural?
Pablo: Me imagine que te referías a estos diarios… solo buscaba confirmarlo.
Personalmente creo que es una lástima que los diarios del Grupo Reforma se hallan retirado de la competencia, y lo siento aún mas porque fui parte de ellos. Estoy seguro que otros miembros de SND opinan lo mismo.
Pero las verdaderas razones de este retiro del concurso podría explicarlas mejor la gente que ahí continua trabajando.
Sin embargo, este es un concurso totalmente abierto, donde se convoca a la participación de los diarios más no se obliga a nadie a hacerlo.
No porque deje de participar el Grupo Reforma deja de tener validez el concurso, o le resta credibilidad, o le impacta o afecta en la reputación internacional.
En el concuros siguen participando grandes diarios de México y muchos otros países.
PD: ¿En cuál diario trabajas Pablo?
Juan,
While I can’t speak for others, I am at least one member who does not agree with your statement. Perhaps you could explain why you think it’s a problem to announce a small number of winners immediately online? I can’t even think of a reason why it would be a problem. I think describing them as “leaked” is also an unfair description, as if individuals are independently sneaking information to the web site. I think it’s been made pretty clear that releasing this small amount of information while the contest is ongoing has been made part of the overall process, from the top down. And it reflects what we are trying to do more and more in our newsrooms, get information that we can online right away. While it would be nice to have all the results instantly online, it’s clearly not practical. I’m amazed they get a complete database up as fast as they do. I’m sure you have a good reason for your objection and that is valid, but I don’t think it’s accurate to suggest that the entire membership shares your view on this.
Paul,
For the record.
I said that “I am sure that MANY SND members will agree” not as you say that “the ENTIRE membership shares your view on this”
It’s clear to me that you and the “leakers” don’t agree.
But I would like to know how comfortable is the SND membership with this practice.
As Steve said, there are strict rules for judges and helpers, but I don´t think that they include this selective “leaking”
Again, our membership will be better served with a quicker final results than with this distractions.
I am sorry, but what we want and need is information, not gossip!
Does anyone truly NEED this information in such an urgent way that is being repeatedly described here? What’s at stake, exactly, that someone can’t wait a little while longer to learn if they have won an award or not? Is your raise or a promotion being withheld?
Maybe entrants should just be grateful 1) to have a job, 2) to have an employer who pays for their entries, or the ability to do so themselves, and 3) that newspaper designers seem to have a far higher chance of professional recognition (due to the thousands of awards given out each year) than just about any other profession I can think of.
Just a note. I read the top 10 award winners at the top of this page. It seems to me they add up to 12?
Frank
Disregard my last comment. I see the top 10 are actually 12 because of a couple ties.
Frank
Pablo:
There is just one thing I don’t understand.
If you already know how it is the process and there is no obligation to participate, then, why are you complaining now?
RJ
It seems a little unfair to me all the against comments. Do you remember last year? Where we have nothing to wait without knowning anything about the results? Looks like SND is trying to do some better approach to all of us about what´s going on in the contest, (some momments I can feel like I was there) and is very appreciated to me. Maybe isn´t a perfect system yet but this is a god beginning.
Keep going SND Staff, and try to bring us the results as soon as YOU CAN, because that wait is killing us.
BTW: I love the poems, really like the flickr (and suffer with it, because never looked a page of our newspaper) and feel a lot of envy about Pizza and Karaoke night, maybe is that what really bothers us… Maybe all of us really would love to be there! hehehe =)
What we all need are faster results and professionalism. I do not agree that US rules the Top 10 of the design world. Simply don’t.
There’s are too talented artist in Europe and Latin America that could add inspiration with their alternative aproach to the field of the information art.
For this point the judges has to be more and more diverse. You only need to see some of the past books to see pages that don’t deserve an award. And this makes you wonder about the fairnes of the competition.
What we need is a jailbreak from the tradition.
I believe that there is badly understood, first because one does not question the juries and the fact that they do the ridiculous situation in a Karaoke and soon does not have the value of publishing it in the Blok of the aid, neither either to the cause who requires itself of another weekend to finish the selection of the best works, that is the one of the less, work much, is deserved bla bla bla is but that just, which calls the attention to me is that they have spent 28 years in which always speech of advances and where is?
Why Latin America does not have its own selection? Perhaps us we do not deserve it? Or there is no a director of ingenuous art that accepts all the economic exigencies that there are to be able to make a version of the SND in Latin America?
And I would ask myself, bloks like visually if they can do it, not a selection (that serious the serious event but that could have after Ñ in Europe) but if to handle a pedagogical scheme but, gentlemen we do not forget that we are not decorators of pages, We are graphical journalists and to obtain a prize of between 2000 that are distributed, is not so little the great merit, in addition, as Enrique says, to the Salvador, are works who nor deserves it, I what I question is perhaps the best newspapers are in EU? Where they were left the Brazilians, the Argentineans, the Chileans and the Mexicans?
My intention is not to lack the respect to nobody, and many less to question the Work of the judges far from it, which I think is that Latin America to had a very great advance in the newspaper design and the treatment of the SND is not the best one, are concerted efforts but they are not sufficient in addition if we consider that the crisis of newspapers is each you see greater and for want of budgets to pay great stars of the design it is necessary to bet to him to the talent of students that does not even finish their races, there is where we waited for the pedagogical work of the SND because otherwise it did not happen to be the best one I catalogue for that the consultants and designers we obtain to better clients and better pays.
Remember that Latin America is not just Argentina and Mexico also are other countries where things are becoming interesting and deserve to be outstanding to if the budget it does not reach so that the SND remembers them.
I hope that nobody feels offended with this and I take leave before not without emphasizing the work of Area 11 since has become the most important window for the graphical journalists in Latin America.
does anyone from the competition have any comments or thoughts from seeing everyone’s work?
trends?
good? bad?
something for the rest of us to chew on? ideas we can share with our own teams?
hook us up!
Wild and crazy thought: Should the competition judging take place somewhere other than in the U.S. every year?
Would certainly allow for a much different geographic mix of judges and helpers.
Logistical nightmare, perhaps. But just a thought.
Dean, maybe the competition judging can take place outside the US every three years instead. Doing so will help to avoid the logistical nightmare. México it’s a good place to start.
YESSSS in Mexico city could be awesome!! and cheap and near for everyone!
What do you mean, “everyone”?
well...for almost all latinoamericans
Having the competition judging site move around periodically (as does the annual workshop) would be a good move. As with any location, it wouldn’t work for everyone each time. But diversity is always good.
Thanks for the comments on considering moving the competition around and diversifying the mix of judges and assistants.
So you all know, the competition will likely remain at Syracuse for the next several years. SND has a signed agreement with the university, which donates incredible amounts of volunteer help, not to mention space and resources, to pulling off the judging of the nearly 15,000 entries we get every year. Many schools host competitions year after year because they want to be associated with major awards. And the more the school doees the work, the better it gets at pulling off the logistical hurdles these things bring with them.
Meantime, diversifying the judges and facilitators has been a major goal of the competition committee for many years now. Have a suggestion on how we can better do that? Please let us know if you know someone who would be good, or ways we can improve (without moving the competition). Our greatest chance for making major change is here, so we encourage new thinking on how we can be truly representative of our global membership.
Thanks for all the feedback: It’s very helpful to get more thought on all of these issues.