Judging Over

We're all wrapped up for another year here at Drumlins. It's been a record year in a number of ways:

Unofficially, winners totaled 1,747.

Excelsior, a paper that we hadn't really heard of, emerged as the contest's darling with a spectacular redesign that roused a passion that we hadn't seen for a while.

And the two top papers won more awards than any papers had in the past.

But in the end, none of the eight golds on the table would get the votes of all the judges for a best of show.

Still, a damn good show all in all.

Thanks for checking in. And keep checking back for odds, ends and wrap-up pieces over the next couple of days.

The Little Graphic That Could

It is not the policy of the SNDIWD to reveal the name of silver winners. But there was one that caught our attention that we had to find out more about. A one column graphic in The New York Times also caught the attention and admiration of the graphics judging team.

Not only did they award the graphic a silver medal, but also managed enough excitement to award a JSR as well.

In our collective memory (which isn't much, we admit), we can't recall a one-column anything creating quite this buzz. But we loved the idea of it.

We asked two of the judges -- Charles Apple and Karl Gude -- to talk about why they thought the graphic was worthy of so much attention.

The top winners ...

The entries have all been judged, and everything that won has been entered in the database. We're about to reveal the Top 10 winners in order of number of awards received, but a caution: Numbers could change after the database has been audited, so we are not yet giving number of awards received.

With that said, here are the top winners in all categories from the 28th Best of Newspaper Design:

1. The New York Times (and its magazines)
2. Los Angeles Times (and its magazine)
3. Excelsior
4. Hartford Courant
5. San Jose Mercury News
6. The Boston Globe (and its magazine)
7. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel
8. La Presse
9. The (Cleveland) Plain-Dealer
10. El Mundo (and its magazines)

Check back later this week on snd.org for the final numbers after the SND staff doublechecks the database. Kudos to all the winners!

General Judging Over

The facilitators have picked up the last entries off the tables. The judges will get a five minute break and regather to consider group JSRs or a possible Best of Show.

Can you believe ... 1,700

The 1,700th award has arrived at the data desk: a portfolio magazine entry from El Mundo Metropoli takes the honors.

One ... more ... time!

OK, we really mean it. We're almost done. The judges are literally finishing the final category right now, and then they'll all review all the gold medal winners.

The SNDIWD is preparing the Best Designed Newspapers for instant posting as soon as the judging is completed here in Syracuse. Stay tuned!

We do have another milestone winner to announce ... No. 1,650 goes to Link, from Norfolk, Va., for a page design portfolio.

'I Vote No,' by Charles Apple

The graphics team is done judging entries and discussing and (occasionally) awarding medals. We caught up with them as they were winding down and preparing to write their team mission statement. And to goof around trying to best Kevin Hand's "Judge's Journal" video blogs from last year's competition.

Ladies and gentlemen, "I Vote No" by CHARLES APPLE:

And then there were Eight

The news judges wrapped up their medal discussions with a gold in the overall redesign category. This was for the complete paper and it was indeed a dramatic rethinking of a paper that has more than made its presence known with 28th Edition judges.

Silver update: We're currently at 97 silver medals awarded. Again, our collective memory is a little wanting but we feel fairly confident in declaring this a high mark for the competition. Going back through the past five editions, this is what the silver counts were:

27th Edition -- 48
26th Edition -- 78
25th Edition -- 63
24th Edition -- 77
23rd Edition -- 66

Where Are We?

Three of the judging groups are done with chipping and medal discussions. The news judges are finishing up medal discussions. The long-form judges are wrapping up the last category of the competition (6B, Feature Design/Lifestyle Sections).

Coming up, we'll put all the medals out on the tables and the judging groups will get together to talk about any possible group JSRs or a Best of Show.

Lucky Number 7

We have a 7th gold -- this one from the graphics area in the Miscellaneous category. This was for a series of graphics/stories that were mailed to subscribers that over the course of time would make a book.

This is the second gold for the graphics group.

1,600! Sell! Sell!

We're in unchartered territory here, folks. The SNDIWD has just received word of winning entry No. 1,600 here at the competition.

The judges are on their final categories of the day, and we'll deliver word when they've completed the main judging and begin their review of the medal winners for any potential Best of Show discussions.

Winner No. 1,600 comes from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for a page design portfolio.

3 P.M. UPDATE: Customer #1550,your award is ready

Award of Excellence winner No. 1,550 comes from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer for their entry in the Reprints category titled "A Life in the Balance." Congrats to the P-I on their award!

Like the Energizer Bunny, we're still going ...

SND28 Home Game Update

A number of you have entered to play Otto's Name That Newspaper home game, but if you haven't yet there's still time to watch the slideshow and send in your guesses!

And don't forget, you can check out Otto's judge's-eye-view of some of the competition entries by doing a Flickr filter for snd28otto.

It's 2 p.m. and we're still going ...

The news judges are up to overall redesigns now, and the features judges are working on section designs. It's starting to wind down (a bit) but there's still plenty of work yet to be done.


Winner No. 1,450 comes from Clarin in Argentina, for a graphics portfolio entitled "Asalto Acasuso"

Stay tuned as we start wrapping up the weekend with the announcement of the World's Best Designed Newspapers, as well as the final top 10 in overall winners, sometime late this afternoon.

Official portraits?

While opining about deep graphic matters during the last medal discussion, graphics judge Karl Gude sketched himself and his team on the paper covering the judging table. The SNDIWD was so taken we're lobbying for Karl to do the official portraits of all the judges for the book.

From left, Carrie Cockburn, Vivian Kent, Charles Apple, Léo Tavejnhansky and the artist himself. Underneath are the colored chips each judge has been using since the start of the competition.

EARLIER: The Graphics team poses for their SNDIWD team photograph.

Gold Times Six

The features judges just awarded their first gold of the competition in category 12E, magazine cover story.

That brings the 28th Edition gold count to six.

For a little historical perspective, gold counts for the past five judging years:
27th Edition -- 0
26th Edition -- 6
25th Edition -- 12
24th Edition -- 11
23rd Edition -- 22
(the 23rd Edition included categories for the events of 9-11)

LUNCHTIME STATUS REPORT:1,400 AND COUNTING

The numbers at the data entry desk here in Syracuse just keep climbing! The 1,400th award goes to The Bulletin of Bend, Oregon for a page entered in the Features design/pages category for "Paint It Nude."

Heading into lunch, there are now less than 500 entries left to judge. We're at 5 Golds, 84 Silvers and 4 JSRs.

The top 10 list has changed slightly, with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel edging out one of the other papers. But with more winners to come and a lot of close counts, that list will be in flux.

At the end of the day, we'll announce the World's Best, the Gold winners and the top 10 papers. And, if there's a Best of Show, we'll let you know that, too. We're just not sure when the end of the day will be.

Karaoke with a purpose

Karaoke Night -- a brief late-night respite from the grueling hours of the judging -- was a big success for the SND Foundation Sunday night. Through a combination of generous donations and bribes from attendees (and a few post-reception wedding guests still partying at the hotel bar), we raised about $1,500. Half of that came from a robust and exceptionally generous matching donation by Matt Mansfield. Huzzah.

The money will sponsor student travel and registrations at educational events.

The SND-IWD wants to remind you that it's always a good time to think about making a donation to the Foundation. To find out more, visit SND.org.

11:30 a.m. update

Another winner to announce this morning, is winner No. 1,350 — the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, for a special section cover page, "Round Two," for an NBA playoff preview section.

The graphics judges are done with their work. Section redesigns are now on the table for the news judges. Special section inside pages are being judged in long form, and the features judges are clearing magazine page design right now.

A Fifth Gold

The graphics judging group awarded their first gold medal of the competition in non-breaking news, feature graphics (category 16B). With the two golds awarded by the news team and two by the photo/small papers team, we're now at 5 gold medals.

Grattis på födelsedagen

SU graphics professor Sean McNaughton and birthday girl
Anna Ostlund are helping the graphics team this weekend at Syracuse.

That's "happy birthday" in Swedish to former SND-Scandinavia president ANNA OSTLUND, a facilitator with the graphics team at this year's competition who's also celebrating a big milestone today.

Graphics judge CHARLES APPLE guessed she was about 25 years old. The SND-IWD figures he's got to be close since Sweden is on the metric system, so that modifies quantities with a factor of about 1.8, which is nice.

Send your birthday wishes to anna.ostlund (at) confetti.se

An all-time high

ED: "Jerry, I hate to interrupt, but we've got a new record... "
JERRY: "Well let's SEE THOSE NUMBERS!"

It's official. The 1,300th winner for the 28th edition was just logged with the data entry desk here in Syracuse and we've still got hundreds of entries left on the tables. That means this year's competition will deliver an all-time record number of winners, breaking what we believe to be the previous mark of 1,237 in the 24th edition.

The 1,300th winner is an award for the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine in the cover design category for "Local Fiction."

Day 3 Begins ... When Will it End?

Good morning from Syracuse, where the sun is actually out and the judges are getting down to work on the final day of the 28th annual competition.

The SND-IWD is up and running, sort of, with a few late-night casualties still MIA. But rest assured, our intrepid reporters are in the field poised to pounce on the final day's winners as they arrive. The biggest question is what time we'll wrap up the judging today — and there's no real way to tell just yet.

Where do things stand? The news judges are beginning work on redesigns (page redesign first), the long form judges are working special section covers, and the features judges are now working on magazine overall design. The small newspaper judges are continuing their steady march through their entries, and the graphics judges are actually close to being first to the finish line. They'll likely do reprints as their final category of the weekend.

Stay tuned to SND.org all day long as we wrap up the 28th judging and deliver breaking news of the final top 10 winners as well as the World's Best Designed Newspapers later today at the conclusion of the judging.

Road trip

KENNEY MARLATT takes us along on a quick tour of the daily trip from the hotel to the judging site and throughout Drumlin's to visit a couple of the five different team areas.