It's official: the Taipei Times is one of the world's best-designed newspapers.
The Society of Newspaper Design (SND) announced on Tuesday in Providence, Rhode Island, the results of its 1999 competition. It chose three overall winners and 36 finalists, including the Taipei Times.
It is believed to be the first time a newspaper based in Asia, outsiude of Australia, has won one of the SND's overall design awards. The Australian was the only other newspaper from Asia in the group of 36 this year.
More than 14,000 entries were submitted for the prestigious awards, and the judges' panel culled these to 321 -- from 29 countries -- for the final assessment of best overall design.
The three standouts were Die Zeit and Die Woche, both from Germany, and Mural, from Zapopan, Mexico.
Other English-language finalists included the New York Times and the Detroit Free Press from the US, the Globe and Mail and the National Post from Canada, and the Independent and The Guardian from the UK.
Among non-English-language newspapers, the Liberty Times won awards for three of its features pages.
The awards have become a benchmark recognition of design excellence in the publishing industry worldwide. In its press release, the Society of Newspaper Design noted, however, that design extends well beyond the use of typography, graphics and photography. Its panel of five judges "evaluated writing, storytelling, use of resources, execution, headlines, and `voice'."
The awards will be presented at the SND's annual conference, which is being held this year in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in August.
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