SND45: The best newspaper pages from around (most of) the world

By bradleyneedham | May 14, 2024

By Brad Needham

I have heard that taste buds change every 10 days or so. And that as we age, our tastes change as well (with fewer taste buds, we need more to keep things spicy). As I have volunteered for the Society for News Design’s creative competition for the past four years, my tastes have changed as well. The first year I got access to all the entries my mind was blown. I spent hours and hours looking through thousands of entries. I probably cried tears of joy. Then, pages with other worldly illustrations — the likes I never had access to as a designer — blew me away. I couldn’t get enough. Each year it has been harder to get me swooning like I did the first year. And I started to think, is that a great page design or a great illustration/art direction?

Either way, I still love the big, splashy pages, and you will see some here. This post will focus on newspapers outside of the Canada and the United States. Canadian newspapers are the books. A post about newspapers in the United States is coming.

SND44: Best newspaper pages from around the world

It’s not easy to cram the rest of the world into one post. There are so many incredible publications doing incredible things. And sadly this only reflects those who submitted entries to SND45. There are so many more out there doing outstanding work. But this year, I want to ensure the pages I show here capture both the outstanding illustrations, but also my new love. Pages that rely more on pure page design. Maybe you have photos, maybe you have a simpler illustration. So how you use those matters. What do you do with the white space? What about the typography? These are things any designer, almost regardless of resources, can do if the powers that be are willing to let them be bold and use space.

Some of the major winners at this year’s competition were Politico Europe, Die Zeit, South China Morning Post and Politken. Dei Zeit and Politiken, along with Weekendavisen and La Nacion, are also finalists for the title of World’s Best Designed Newspaper, which was the team I helped facilitate for again this year.

And now to some pages. I will break them down in different ways. Some by title, some by design philosophy (I will have a special section for pages that don’t rely on one big, stunning illustration). I will also have a small section on World’s Best finalists, as I will be doing a separate post for that after the winner or winners is/are announced.

Before I jump into some of the other big names, I’m going to look at one of my favourite newspapers. And despite what I said above about loving simplicity, this publication uses big, bright and/or bold illustrations all the time, covers and inside. But I appreciate that even with the illustration-driven pages, the text is still well designed.

Reporte Indigo

Politico Europe

Politico Europe is a publication that punches above its weight. They do some outstanding work. I believe they were the top paper outside of the United States in terms of overall awards at this year’s competition (only behind The New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Washington Post). The next two pages are from the same story, and while I love the cover illustration, I appreciate the inside design even more. But also the illustration!

The illustration below won a gold medal, which is an incredibly high honour at SND. To receive a gold, it not only has to stand out from other award winners, it should be nearly impossible to find a flaw and should be state of the art for print design.

And here are a few more including a short slide show at the end. I’d love to include more, but I need to get onto some other papers. But you can see all the Politico awards here.

South China Morning Post

This publication is known for its mesmerizing infographics and illustrations. And it didn’t disappoint this year. Here are a few to keep you captivated (full results from SCMP here). The first won both a gold medal in the information graphics category and a silver for illustration. Not bad for one page.

This one also won a silver medal for information graphics.

And this one is just a visual journey.

World’s Best finalists

Here is one page each from this year’s World’s Best finalists, in no particular order, as I will dedicate an entire post to these titles. Again, they are Weekendavisen, Politiken, Die Zeit and La Nacion.

A look inside

Now for my new (old) love. I don’t want to say simple, but here are some pages (a few in slide shows that I encourage you to scroll through) that rely on page designers more than illustrators to give you the wow. I got giddy looking through some of these. This was the sort of thing I aspired to in my design days because I could with the limited resources my paper had (and the willingness of my managing editor to be bold). I’m not saying I hit this level, but I also don’t want to downplay that I won three times (including once for portfolio) at a paper with a small circulation and an even smaller team. The slide shows are from winning story design entries, and will sometimes have illustration-driven covers. This first one is from Dagens Nyheter, which you will see more from later as it’s another one of my favourite papers.

This Politico cover uses a fun image, which mostly requires a solid photographer and a creative mind. And the inside relies on beautiful design.

This Poliken story package is largely driven by stunning photography, but it also uses a nice clean design inside.

I especially love the super clean and elegant page 2 of this de Volkskrant package.

OK, this De Morgen package relies on a creative illustration for the cover and inside, but I love the inside page so much for its page design, which uses a very smart illustration so well. It fills the space perfectly.

As to not make this post too much longer, I’m going to share a few pages individually and then the rest in a slide show. There so many brilliant pages from so many organizations this year. You can see the full competition results here. I will start with this one from Spanish newspaper Faro de Vigo, as it was one of my standout pages from this year’s competition.

What’s your angle? It depends. NRC (Netherlands) is tipping few degrees this way and O Globo (Brazil) is tipping a lotta degrees that way!

As promised a few more from Dagens Nyheter. I love this Barbie page.

And last but not least, here is a slide show with pages from the Economic Observer (China), the Hindu (India), Activos (Spain), Asiad Daily (China), Arab News (Saudi Arabia), Handelszeitung (Swizterland), The Sunday Times (Britain) and Estadio de Minas (Brazil).

Callout: If you’re a newspaper designer who would like your work featured, reach out!

SND45: Canada’s best newspaper designs — a selection of submissions

By bradleyneedham | May 12, 2024

By Brad Needham

Covers in a dangerous time. I chose this as the name of my blog to highlight that newspapers are going through a tumultuous time, but I wanted to make sure the great work still happening was recognized. Each year at the Society for News Design’s annual creative competition, I am reminded by how much more prevalent the tumult is in Canadian media.

Again this year there were only entries from three newspapers: the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and Le Devoir. Between them they won 33 total awards, including one silver medal (awarded for pages that are excellent, but even stand out among the excellence. This was given to the Globe and Mail for its climate coverage package) and 32 awards of excellence. For a page to receive this honour, three of five judges need to agree that this page shines. Overall, the numbers are down for Canadian outlets (The Globe had 32 on its own last year, and managed 26 this year). The Canadian total was 38 last year.

When I won, I submitted for the Guelph Mercury, a small paper that punched way above its weight. I would love to see a few more publications next year.

Alas, this site is meant to celebrate excellence in visual journalism, and despite there being fewer wins this year, Canadian media outlets produced some outstanding stuff.

Full results: SND 45 winners

As a little background, this is my fourth year assisting at SND’s Best of Newspaper Design competition. I have acted a facilitator (I am not a judge; I help the ensure the judges have everything they need, and help organize things for the SND team). I started on the news team and have been on the World’s Best team for the the past three years. It has been an honour to be involved. This year it was held in Minneapolis, Minnesota, at the Star Tribune office.

Time to show off some brilliant newspaper design, the reason anyone comes to this site. These pages may or may not have won awards. I chose them because I liked them. I will start with Le Devoir, as they had one of my favourite pages.

Le Devoir (Montreal)

Often when doing newspaper design, designers need to find a way to illustrate things that can be tricky to illustrate. I appreciate the thought that goes into this. In this case it’s porn. Imagine being asked: we want to do a story about pornography, and it will be a section front. How will you illustrate this? Blurry bananas, naturally. Or at least one.

And here is another. A simple but smart photo. A good use of white space, as this paper is known for.

Toronto Star

I am always excited to see the Star do great things. I am proud to say I have worked on Star pages and created some I’m proud of. Though I didn’t have the opportunity to do any of this calibre in my time there. This first page, from a staff portfolio submission, has a bit of a Los Angeles Times vibe. It’s bright and fun. Bubble letters.

I have seen pages similar to this before. Little people making shapes. This is nicely done. Not only the image but the rest of the design.

This page created some controversy when it first ran. Many thought the photo was insulting to longtime Mississauga, Ontario, mayor Hazel McCallion. Others thought it should have been identified as being enhanced (it was desaturated, which isn’t normally something a newspaper would do with a photo, but rather a photo illustration). But even when it came out, I posted it on my Instagram. It’s striking as an image, and as a page.

One more from the staff portfolio entry. It’s driven by the illustration, but there is some fun text treatment.

And here are a few more from the Star.

Globe and Mail

And last, but definitely not least, Canada’s big winner, the Globe and Mail. The results are still being tallied, but looks like the Globe might have squeezed into the top 10 again this year, at number 10. Much of the design the Globe was recognized for was for coverage of serious and heavy topics. Special coverage on climate change won a silver medal. I get the Globe at home (and disclosure: PMNA, where I work, does page production for the Globe) and the next two pages were pages that really stood out for me. All the pages here are handled at the Globe and/or art directed at the Globe.

The Globe has also been a leader on coverage of the war in Gaza in Canadian media. It had some striking pages on that topic, like this cover (the Globe does a poster front on Saturdays) and the photo spread below. They do some beautiful photo spread pages.

And one more, driven by this powerful, emotion-filled photo.

The next two were pages from art directors who each won individual portfolio awards. That’s a tricky category to win in, as it recognizes a body work. The first is from Brennan Higginbotham. The second is from Lauren Heintzman.

And now for some fun stuff. The Globe, and other Canadian media outlets, often turn to Kagan McLeod when they want a fun illustration. He’s a wizard (also credit to Kagan for the featured image I use with this post, as it’s a portion of one of the illustrations below). And he didn’t disappoint here.

Here are the last couple I will show from this year. They are both so playful and fun. And as has become norm for the Globe, they have fantastic headlines.

Fingers crossed we see more Canadian publications entering next year. Looking at you, Postmedia and Winnipeg Free Press, among others. Stand with print media and celebrate your great work.

Up next: Best from the United States, best from the rest of the world, and finally World’s Best Designed Newspaper. Watch for those sprinkled over the next week or so.

SND44: Best newspaper designs from around the world

By bradleyneedham | May 27, 2023

By Brad Needham

When it comes to fashion and trends, Europe tends to be ahead of North America. But what about newspapers? You can spot European fashion at a glance. You can also typically spot European newspapers at a glance. They are different. Fewer broadsheets, more rules, crisp and clean designs, the typography more often used in different ways. Those who follow my Instagram will have seen pages from a lot of these publications as I feature them all the time.

I have already posted about Canada’s best and America’s best. This post will feature some of my favourite newspaper pages submitted to the Society for News Design‘s 44th creative competition from outside of Canada and the U.S. Most are from Europe, but not all. I have covered the best from Canada (home team bias) and the U.S. Now the rest. But the world is a big place outside of Canada and the U.S. That will make narrowing down the the choices of pages in this post a challenge.

RELATED: Results from SND44

Before I jump into the top papers (which I am classifying as Die Zeit and Weekendavisen, both finalists for the competition’s World Best Designed Newspaper, as well as the remaining papers in the top 10 in awards, de Volkskrant, Politico and South China Morning Post), I am carrying on a tradition I started last year to make it official. While my role was muddied this year, I am still calling this a Facilitator’s Special Recognition.

Facilitator’s Special Recognition

There are thousands of entries. I try to go though as many as I can, but I can’t get through them all. As I was going through this year’s entries, I thought one of my favourite publications was absent. But then I saw it. Reporte Indigo from Mexico is one of those publications that leaves me chuckling every day at how much effort is put in, and how great every edition is. Shaking my head in a awe-struck kind of way, asking how do they do it? There isn’t a dud. Some are stronger than others, but they’re all great. I wish they would submit more entries. While I can’t speak for how the judges would react, I love this publication. This spread does so much for me. The sketch and then sketched flag (I did this once, with both drawings much more rudimentary, though intentionally so!), the beautiful illustration, the amount of information. I fell in love with Reporte Indigo at SND42. A page from this publication left me biting my tongue listening to the judges speak. They gave the page an Award of Excellence, but I wanted more. I have included that page below. But first my special recognition.

Here is the first page that made want to scream to the judges, give it a medal! It’s worth it! This was from SND42. It’s the page that made me love this publication. I hope to see more next year!

Weekendavisen

This Dutch paper is so elegant. That is a theme among a lot of European papers. They are beautiful and clean. This page uses such a nice illustration, but it works so well around the flag and text on the page. It’s more than just an illustration.

This is a smart cover. The text from the flag feels like it’s being sucked into the blackhole. I love it when newspapers are willing to play with their name plate.

I also love when newspapers use text in design (you will see more of the is with Die Zeit. In fact, you will see one that’s quite similar in concept!)

And here are a couple more. Just so well done, with so much attention to even small details. One is an inside page that has a classic European compact/tabloid look.

Die Zeit

This German paper, last year’s World’s Best Designed winner and in contention again this year, could be talked about with some German stereotypes. It is exceedingly well organized and very consistent throughout. There are few papers in the world as consistently consistent! And it is one of the best at using text in design. But on top of being consistent, it has some pages that surprise. Some that are very bold.

Here is the page that had a similar design and concept to the Weekendavisen one above. Who did it better? We’ll call it a tie.

The designer uses the photo so well in this design. One thing that always blows me away with this paper is how much text, a volume of text that might appear dense anywhere else, it can put on a page and still have it pop. It’s almost like a sleight of hand. Grey block of text? What do mean? Look at the design …

And just a small selection of text in design, or rather text as design. I’m not sure anyone does it better.

Politico

The covers of this paper are some of the most compelling around. They are illustration-driven in almost all cases, which means for them to stand out as design they must be backed by strong art direction. As the team gets it so right so often, I can only assume this is the case. Politico isn’t afraid to tackle very difficult subjects either. This first one was one of my favourite pages from the competition.

Another around the war in Ukraine. Last year marked a bit of a trend toward using darker photos. Photo editors and those making decisions often agonize over decisions like this, but in order to show the true devastation in Ukraine, dead bodies and other gruesome scenes became common on newspaper front pages. But this photo below is still so shocking, and using it like this is bold. And it has a smart headline, almost a call to action. How did we let this happen? Again?

These two spreads were near the top of my faves list as well. So simple, so smart, such little art. But it works so well. The text carries so much of the burden in the design.

And this. So much about the text but the image helps elevate. Early in my career I did a page that reminds me of this, but on a much lesser scale, where I used a shadow effect, for mine it was a dollar sign acting as a shadow for the finance minister. I will always favour pages that remind me of mine! This one is next level.

This illustration is very powerful. Taking something beautiful and making it tragic. I could show so many more for Politico, but I’ll leave it here for now.

de Volkskrant

I won’t lie. I think this is one of the best designed newspapers in the world, maybe the best, but I’m not a judge. From the cover and beyond. It’s so fresh, often surprising, but still always on brand, even when it surprises. The small details. You can see many pages from de Volkskrant on my Instagram and in previous posts here.

And while there are so many more incredible pages, I have chosen a few from the same edition to highlight how its commitment to excellence and consistency goes beyond the cover.

South China Morning Post

And the South China Morning Post, which tied for 10th overall in awards. This publication has some absolutely stunning information graphics. The visual presentation is so strong, and it adds a ton of little bits of information to support the graphics/illustrations. This first page won a silver medal, so a step above an Award of Excellence. It’s followed by three others, that are also incredible in their own ways. While the designers could rely on the same style, they have quite a range. They somehow manage to be versatile, taking very different approaches, while maintaining excellence throughout. Each one of these is vastly different from the one before and after, but all of them are jaw-dropping.

Europe and beyond

The illustration on this first page by La Nueva Espana looks so real you almost ask yourself, how did that happen. This is another of my faves from the competition.

And then this illustration. Mind blowing.

And I can’t leave Politiken out. I am a big fan of this publication. I think it does so many things well. It is perhaps the best at using a consistent colour palette. It uses red and black throughout so often to hold it all together. And this first page is just such a powerful topic, headlined: My rape.

Below are the last few pages I will highlight, though there were so many more worthy of the spotlight. Below are pages from The Sunday Times (U.K.), Polska (Poland), the Daily Telegraph (U.K.), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), The Age (Australia) and Arab News (Saudi Arabia).