2010 ACP Design of the Year Winners
co-sponsored by Adobe Systems

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View judges' comments

Newspaper Page One

Newspaper Page/Spread

Newsmagazine/Special Section Cover

Yearbook/Magazine Page/Spread

Infographic

Illustration

Judges' Comments

Newspaper Page One

Overall comments
As a whole, what set the award winners apart from the rest was a keen eye for typography, the ability to use photography well, an excellent grid structure, the “wow-factor” and a great grasp of content. In this category, unfortunately, a lot of newspapers failed to find a grid and stick to it. The typography of a majority of newspapers was lacking. The use of cliché or amateurish illustration and photography killed a lot of entries. Realize your strengths and above all present something engaging and clean. These winning entries stood far and above the rest of the pack.

1st place
Excellent contemporary grid structure? Check. Fantastic nameplate that allows strong photography to excel? Check. Wow factor? Definite check. The Daily News adds a lot of information into the presentation. Check out the detail work in that large photo … stats galore that don’t eat up the content of the image.The details in the display typography are well-executed (check out the repetition of the line in the namplate and the echo of it in the bylines). Various entry points and story forms. A few nitpicks: Watch your H&J’s in your body type and keep an eye on making your pages too busy.

2nd place
This is definitely a reader’s newspaper. The grid structure is elegant. The typography is beautiful. The use of color is restrained and serves a purpose. While the photo is not terribly strong, it is used in an engaging way. The magenta is a bit much … especially on the forecast. By and large I enjoyed looking at the paper.

3rd place
There’s a lot to like about this page. The ginormous photo is compelling and TELLS the story of capacity crowds. The graphic could use a stronger attention to its tabs. There’s a lot of information in the index strip that could be streamlined with a better, simpler color solution. Overall, it works well, but at times competes against itself.

Newspaper Page/Spread

1st place
In my opinion, this page was very simple buy flawless. Very good use of photography, but even better use of typography, Good headline writing and a pop of contrast at the bottom with the initial cap "W."

2nd place
Beautifully ambitious page design. Dramatic, energetic and very well organized. Great restrain in color use. Was not flawless because of the gimmicky placement of the words "in the" in the headline. Nice use of silhouettes and bar chart.

3rd place
Highly informational, good distribution of graphics. Good use of colors, better use of timeline anchoring a spread. Excellent journalism.

Overall: Designers tend to overuse artistic fonts. Best pages were the more simple ones. The stories were very good and relevant to the times. Sports pages were consistently good. Overall good use of infographics. Tips for designers: Avoid gimmicks such as slanting type. Be more selective with color and photography. Use restraint!

Special Section/Newsmagazine Cover

Overall comments
Thumbs up: Impressive content with clean and simple execution of ideas were at the heart of the winning entries. These covers showed smart and bold usage of typography and images, as well as keen color palette choices.
Thumbs down: Great design never compromises readability. Adding excessive color or using cute fonts outside your normal typographical palette or otherwise tinkering with type and images might seem fun or unique at the time, but it hinders clarity of the content. If you feel the need to bevel, skew, slant or otherwise distort type, try to find a better solution. Your typographical palette — the handful of fonts you choose to use in a publication — is your identity. It is what separates you from other visual communication. Find two or three really good fonts with a range of weights and stick with them.

1st place
Wonderfully effective black and white illustration supported by sophisticated type and smart accent color. Two small nits: 1) A little space between type shifts would have helped a great deal (the tension you got from the overlapping illustration was more than enough) and 2) No need for the arrow.

2nd place
A somewhat cliche idea but executed at a very high level. Visually compelling and sound on nearly every level.

3rd place
No other design made me want to read a story more than this evocative presentation. But is this really a special section? If it was, a label would have helped distinguish it from regular coverage.

YB/Mag Spread

The winner in this category jumped out at me during my very first pass through the entries. "Wow. GREAT page," I thought. The panoramic shot with the graduates -- all lit up by fireworks -- is astounding. The designer knew enough to run the photo big -- across two pages -- and get the hell out of its way. 

The white space, the typography an the small amount of page texture elements added to the whole, rather than detracting from it. A masterful job. This designer has a bright, bright future ahead of him.

The second-place winner was striking because of the wonderfully sensitive use of typography and a very playful structure with the art collage. This is most definitely professional-quality work -- in fact, it's an award-winning level of professional quality work. Kudos to the designer.

The third-place winner here went with a "shattered" theme and carried that theme throughout four spreads. The use of white space and the restrained use of type kept the focus on the story and on the art. Nicely-done.

As for the honorable mentions, I tossed in three different types of entries I saw here. The Drake entries are along the lines of the winners: Very clean and simple and striking. And effective. I hated leaving this piece out. But, alas, only three could win.

The UTEP page was designed very nicely but what really caught my eye there was the nice art headline and the texture in the elements there. Had I been art-directing this page, however, I'd have suggested we kill the gloves ghosted behind the copy. They're not necessary and they make the text a little difficult to read.

The Western Kentucky spread was one of my favorites pages in this contest. I love the headline treatment and the idea of turning a huge, double-page photo of the newly-renovated stadium into an infographic. The only thing I didn't like here was running the big numbers behind each text box. I think this makes a negative impact on readability. There's plenty of room to run the big numbers and THEN the text, so why overlap? I wanted SO badly to rate this page higher, but I just couldn't do it. (I also would love to have seen it in the infographics category.)

The pages that didn't make the cut? There were some nice ones. Much of the work, however, suggests that designers are stretching for ways to "jazz up" their pages and they're resorting to adding decorative elements and other visual doodads. As a visual journalist, try to stay focused on actual content as you assemble your pages. Look for ways to tell (or even echo) the story visually, to emphasize story points or to play up visual elements that are important to the story. This would NOT include colored blocks or torn-paper effects or random icons.

Infographic

A very interesting selection of entries.

While I value aethstetics in information design, of course, what I value MORE is presenting information in an interesting way. I value clarity and cleanliness. But most of all, I want to see a story told well.

What I found holding back a lot of entries was unclear storytelling. Choices of colors made it difficult for the reader to tell what the graphic is about. Placement of typography made one wonder to what that text box referred, exactly. Or I had to work too hard, as a reader, to decipher it all -- to work out which copy referred to which visual; in which order to read copy. Where to begin reading. Stuff like that.

The first place winner -- from Duke University -- did a superb job of turning what could have easily been a boring list of numbers into a real talker. I found it funny that the paper insisted on including a footnote: "Sizes of spheres are shown to scale." And they are. The bit about the 1978 coach's salary being smaller than one pixel made me laugh out loud.

I can't emphasize this enough: This is brilliant work. I believe it's a potential contest winner in the Society for News Design competition as well. 

The second place winner cause me to think long and hard about awarding second place. There was way too much unnecessary decorating going on here. I kept coming back to it, though, because the designer took an interesting subject and broke it up in a way I've not seen done before. This same page -- minus the red stripes and with a little less tilt -- would be a welcome addition to any daily paper's sports section.

It also was a huge struggle to decide between third place and an honorable mention slot. I loved the Hub of the future, a cutaway of a new campus building at the University of Washington. I also liked the detailed map of the Brigham Young campus. In the end, I gave the nod to the piece that seemed like it had the sharper news angle and the most reporting work involved.

Not to complain about the BYU piece, though. It was very well done, as were the other two graphics I nominated for honorable mention: the International students at SUNY Plattsburgh and the finer points of bed racing at Texas-Arlington. A few other pieces caught my eye as well but were closer to being illustrations than informational graphics.

Illustration

1st place
The 3-D approach and creative choice of materials is a breath of fresh air in a field where the flatness of easy computer graphics have become the norm. A powerful, imaginative concept; great attention to detail, character and gesture; photographed from a dramatic angle to construct a powerful composition. Wow!

2nd place
Simple, bold and graphic like a classic magazine cover from the 1920s. Adding to this strong clean approach are details that add context and visual electricity. The metamorphosis of the mechanical computer chip pattern into natural yet decorative flowing leaves is an elegant trick. The color palette is sophisticated and engaging. Strong and stylish.

3rd place
Thumbs up to this dramatic image. Executed with confidence and a technique that feels both graphic and photographic. Reminiscent of airbrush-illustrated covers from the 60s. The limited colors are very smart, the integration with the text very smooth. I love that Kyle included the "masking tape" element in the bottom corner of the x-ray.

HM: Erik Rodriguez, Columbia College
A beautiful drawing which uses historical detail and a muted palette to evoke a perfectly appropriate old-fashion yet punky feeling. Strong draftmanship. Placement of text and the full-bleed create an impressive package.

HM: Tom Tian, Univ. of Chicago
Clever decision to allow a single portrait to have exponential impact through repetition. The choice of warm and cool hues is successful and nice surprises occur when the layers overlap creating further angles and triangles. Allowing plenty of white space keeps the attitude subtle. The reversed headline within the art coordinates the package and pops nicely.

HM: Courtney O'Connell, Univ. of Miami
Clearly a stunning page design and a masterful attention to detail. The selectivity of where to use dark and light, red and blue is very smart. Gracefully avoids being too dependent on the reference photo.