(26 entries)

Judge: Bill Ostendorf, Managing Editor for visuals and new product development, Providence (R.I.) Journal
Ostendorf is an active management and design consultant in Europe and North and South America and has worked with more than 60 media companies in 16 countries. He has helped re-design more than two dozen newspapers and magazines and has led more than 300 workshop sessions. At the Providence Journal, he oversees design, layout, photography, informational graphics and much of the editorial production process.

First place
JOSHUA BEACH and MARK BULLARD
Arizona Daily Star
"We've got the games"
"You can't deny the creativity and energy that went into this section. The editor and designer kept the theme going strong and made lively, organized presentation throughout the section despite a lot of ads. Usually, I'm not a fan of building an entire section so strongly around a theme -- it often overwhelms the content -- but this effort is so consistent and well-done it pulls it off. And `games' is the perfect theme for a sports special section. The photo illustrations and snappy icons throughout this section are really hard to do well. It was very impressive. What would have made the section better? The cover illustration was too complex and a little forced. The opening spread (pages 2-3) really needed a stronger editorial presence and next time, edit file photos better and lose the bad cutouts and dense tints at the bottom of the open pages."

Second place
PAUL SCHWALBACH
Tucson Citizen
"Baseball 99"
"A great cover illustration with excellent typography got this section off to a very strong start. This section was lively inside, too, with lots of good information and design. I liked the ranking of all the teams in the back and the organization and design consistency of the section. A clear choice for number two. Improvements? The use of too many colors was a distraction throughout and undermined some of the consistency of the design."

Third place
BENJAMIN TODD HEGRE
The Arizona Republic
"Playoffs extra"
"A beautiful, classy cover with a strong illustration and tasteful use of a single color made this section stand out. I liked the content and design of the "Behind the Scenes" page but otherwise the inside of the section was pretty type heavy with dull file photos. After such an exciting season, were these really the best file photos available?"

Honorable Mention
JOSHUA BEACH
Arizona Daily Star
"The Ball Street Journal"
"I have to give the team that put this together a lot of credit for making this work as well as it did. I was very impressed at the way the Journal's style of typography and graphics were mimicked throughout the section. Several stories followed the business theme and I really liked the photo illustration of the coach with the "blackboard" and the women’s team around the laptop. But several elements fell short. The cover image was busy and forced. My eye went right to the stock certificates coming out of the briefcase, which were an unnecessary distraction. Other inside photos were weak. Much of the agate type and the text accompanying the fever charts was tiny and very hard to read. And picking a non-visual financial daily to copy is probably not a great theme in the first place."

Honorable Mention
ANN BROWN
Arizona Daily Star
"Caliente"
"This was the strongest of several of these sections entered in the contest. All the issues had strong, consistent and well-organized content and design but this issue had a simple, elegant cover and stronger inside photography that set it apart from the others. Overall, it looked like an excellent, regularly appearing section, which made me wonder why it was entered as a special section. This section could save a lot of space and possibly increase the size of photos by getting rid of the hanging indent on listings."

Honorable Mention
: KEVEN WILLEY
The Arizona Republic
"Anatomy of an Editorial Page"
"This was a great idea that was really well executed. What a great way to say "welcome" to readers and dispel the myths about the editorial page! Unfortunately the writing didn't rise to the level of the concept or design. The lead item had too much editorial page jargon and the cover page really needed a down-to-earth, why-we-did-this intro.