The Bookworm: The Best of Newspaper Design, 30th Edition

Behold! Page design porno.

Technically, I didn’t “read” The Best of Newspaper Design, 30th Edition. (I haven’t even started my next book, so this is more like a gloating version of The Bookworm.) Much like most Playboy subscribers skip the articles and go straight to the nudes, all I did was marvel at each page filled with award winning newspaper designs.

Every year the Society for News Design (SND) publishes a new edition of The Best, highlighting the prize-winning entries in its annual newspaper design contest. Page designers from all over the world submit their work for consideration, and SND judges pore over each in a giant room in Syracuse (maybe the Carrier Dome); row after row after row of tables are set up and each submission is laid out for review. (At least that’s how it was done back in the day…like 10 years ago. They may do everything electronically now.) The judges put their heads together and distribute the awards, which range from “The World’s Best Designed Newspapers” to your standard 4-H fair and Olympic recognition (Best of Show, Gold, Silver). In print — in fabulous full color — the results are titillating.


Though my initial interest in newspapers stemmed from my love for writing, I became more fascinated by a different aspect of print journalism when I became an editor on my high school paper: page design. Each month I needed to place and organize the columns, commentaries, and visuals on my pages in a way that was both functional and aesthetically pleasing. At first I knew little. Inexperienced and unsure what to do, I copied a modular template from years before. It worked well, but was boring and predictable. However, with each issue I gained confidence in my ability to experiment with fonts, graphics, and layouts, and become more daring. With each page I designed, I became more interested in the fine art of pagination.

When I needed design inspiration, I flipped through copies of The Best in the journalism classroom. The paper had a number of different editions, ranging from the late-‘80s to 1999, and I marveled at every page (in the later versions, at least; the designs from the ‘80s were so dated and of the era it was laughable). During late nights of paste-up, or in the quiet hours after school spent chilling in the journalism suite or preparing the next issue, I often browsed The Best for fun. I admired the award winners and made mental bookmarks of designs that particularly caught my eye. I loved those books, and always wanted my own copies.

Hennessey + Ingalls is a badass bookstore specializing in art and architecture books. It’s a bonanza of coffee table literature. I’ve been to the Santa Monica location many times — it’s on Wilshire just west of the Promenade, and I highly recommend paying a visit if you appreciate art and are touring LA — but I never once bought anything there. I browsed their website last week and found they had recent versions of The Best in stock, so on Sunday I headed up the 405 to the west side and finally bought myself a copy (the only one they had!) of SND’s annual page design porno. It has totally satisfied my fetish for German newspapers, feature sections, and well-utilized white space.

When I took The Best to the cashier he looked at the cover and said, “You gonna be designing newspapers?”

I have, and maybe will again.