SportsDesigner.com: March 23, 2008

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Babee in a dress

Remember that NCAA tournament cover from The Tampa Tribune, featuring Dick Vitale in a Cinderella dress? Hey, Channel 8 has the video (with hideous poetry audio)!

Vitale: "I do anything for PR, don't I?"

Thanks to Fisch for the find.

Photoshop? More like Free-toshop.

I believe Rich mentioned this before, but Adobe has launched its "lite" version of Photoshop. It's free. It's Web-based.

Read about it here.

Photoshop Express site is here.

Dallas Morning "New"s

Here's the contest link. Vote and then vote again (except that when you vote again you'll get a popup telling you that you've already voted and you'll technically be wasting your time).

UPDATED with comments. Some design changes at the Dallas Morning News today in conjunction with a transition to a smaller web. Most notable are 1A refers and an overhaul of the mastheads. Labels also got some tweaking. New versions on the left.

A graphic breakdown of the redesign is here.

Sports before PDF: Download SportsDaybefore.pdf
Sports after PDF: Download SportsDayafter.pdf

Follow the jump for insight from the DMN.

Presentation Director Rob Schneider writes:

So we are finally making the switch to a 48-inch web width and made design changes at the same time. Not a redesign by any means. Much more of a cleanup with a couple of major changes.

We looked at the changes as a opportunity to take stock of everything, fix what didn't work and keep what did.

The principle goal of these design changes is to make the paper easier to read. Everything - from our body and agate type to the fonts we used in our headlines to way we space and label our stories - was built from that premise.

The most distinctive change is an easier to read body type. We kept the same font, but adjusted the size and leading.

In order to make things easier to find, we wanted our covers and inside pages to achieve a sense of clarity they were missing before. And so we improved the spacing and separation between all of our elements - from gutters on up to the space between our section flags and the rest of the page. If we added one color to our palette, we wanted it to be white. We also added relentless labeling to all of our stories and pages.

We wanted to use color specifically for navigational purposes but had one big change that came about from our reader research.

In our initial concepts we were restrained in our color approach to our section flags, really for pure design reasons. In our research, though, we gave readers options that used much more aggressive navigational color and they loved it - at a clip of almost 95%. It's certainly the biggest change we've made and I expect to get crap from some brothers in design, but it's hard to argue with the logic from a navigational perspective, and it's obviously not a new concept either. It's just new for us. Obviously, it creates a big difference on our section covers though.

In the end, it will be a living, breathing thing for us. An evolving process that we will continue to improve on.

This process has taken the better part of a year - all while we've been doing our normal jobs as well. A great deal of the help came from Marilyn Bishkin, Sergio Pecanha, Chuck Stewart and Jason Dugger as well as CCI gurus Heather Germany, Tracey Thompson and Kristin Waidler.

Best of SD 2007: Special Section Covers

The voting for the Editor's Choice Awards in the Best of Sports Design is now under way and will continue through April 9.

Follow the jump for winners in the Special Section Covers category. This post wraps up the category winners for this year. Congratulations to everyone.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: SPECIAL SECTION COVERS
(124 entries)

Scott Minister, Columbus Dispatch: NHL '07

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Derek Simmons, Michael Whitley and Michael Hogue, Los Angeles Times: Basketball '07

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo News: Anybody's Ballgame (Baseball '07)

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Charlie Zimkus and Scott Minister, Columbus Dispatch: Football '07

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Jon Wile and Patterson Clark, Washington Post: Everybody in the Pool (Selection Sunday)

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo News: Cracking the Code (NFL '07)

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Nicole Dudka, Chicago Tribune: Formula Won (NASCAR '07)

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Josh Crutchmer, Tim Parks, Dave Elsesser and Kent Sievers, Omaha World-Herald: About Face

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Michael Whitley, Derek Simmons and George Seidlitz, Los Angeles Times: Football 2007

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Vote here (Multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Live Game Covers

Follow the jump for winners in the Live Game Covers category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: LIVE GAME COVERS
(97 entries)

Grant Staublin, Boston Globe: Onslaught

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Ryan Powell, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Tiger Wins

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Brian Gross, Boston Globe: Monster Debut

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo News: Double Trouble

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Emmet Smith, Cleveland Plain Dealer: Bye, Bye, N.Y.

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Tim Parks, Omaha World-Herald: Piling On

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Staff, San Jose Mercury-News: Bonds

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Wayne Kamidoi, New York Times: 756

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo News: Deliverance

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Vote here (Multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Special Coverage

Follow the jump for winners in the Special Coverage category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: SPECIAL COVERAGE
(One day or multiple days of coverage of a single topic)

Michael Whitley, Robert Gauthier, George Wilhelm and Colin Crawford, L.A. Times: Stanley Cup

(Two pages from a multiple page entry. Click here for a PDF of the full entry)
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Dave Elsesser, Josh Crutchmer, Tim Parks and Ben Vankat, Omaha World-Herald: Creighton in the NCAA

Two pages from a multi-page entry. Below are JPEGS of the full entry:
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/1487/CreightonTruck.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/1487/CUCOVERNCAA.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/10199/FaceTimePage3.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/10199/PortersInk.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/10199/6WH01SRC0317.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/1487/6WH11SRC0317.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/1487/S0317CUPOSTPC12.jpg
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Brian Gross, Grant Staublin and Staff, Boston Globe: MLB Playoffs

Two pages from a multi-page entry. Below are JPEGS of the full entry
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/754/WorldSeries110407.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/754/WorldSeries102907.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/754/ALCSgame7.jpg
http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/754/ALDSgame1.jpg
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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Special Section Inside

Follow the jump for winners in the Special Section/Enterprise Inside Pages category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: SPECIAL SECTION/ENTERPRISE INSIDE PAGES
(60 entries)

Robert Cohn, Miami Herald: Heat Preview

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Jason Dugger, Dallas Morning News: Rangers Report

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo News: Measuring Sticks

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Mitch Rubin and Patterson Clark, Washington Post: Ring Around the Trophy

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Josh Crutchmer, Omaha World-Herald: Saving Face

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Michael Whitley, Robert Gauthier, George Wilhelm and Colin Crawford, L.A. Times: Stanley Cup

(This was a multiple-page entry. Click here for a PDF version of the full entry)
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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Photo Pages/Posters

Follow the jump for winners in the Photo Pages/Posters category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: PHOTO PAGES/POSTERS
(53 entries)

Jim Davis and Brian Gross, Boston Globe: World Series

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Michael Whitley, Robert Gauthier, George Wilhelm and Colin Crawford, L.A. Times: Stanley Cup

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R.J. Sangosti, John Sunderland, Lory Punko and J. Damon Cain, Denver Post: Dirty Dozen

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Glenn Asakawa, Andy Cross, Karl Gehring and J. Damon Cain, Denver Post: Fabled Fenway

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Enterprise/Feature CP

Follow the jump for winners in the Enterprise/Feature Centerpiece category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: ENTERPRISE/FEATURE CENTERPIECE
64 entries

Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo: Self-Made Chad

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Michael Whitley, Derek Simmons and Joe Morse, L.A.Times: Beckham

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Paul Wallen, San Diego: Recruiting Games

PDF: Download RecruitingGames.pdf
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Noah Musser, Kansas City Star: Red All Over

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo: Air Traffic Control

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Live Game Inside

Follow the jump for winners in the Live Game Inside Pages category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: LIVE GAME INSIDE PAGES

Rob Schneider, Dallas Morning News: Bonds Record

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Tim Parks, Omaha World-Herald: 756

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Ben Vankat, Omaha World-Herald: Beaver Freshman Delivers

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Vince Chiaramonte, Buffalo News, Super Bowl XLI

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Cover Design/Ads

Follow the jump for winners in the Cover Design With Ads category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: COVER DESIGN WITH ADS

Jonathan Boho, South Florida Sun-Sentinel: Fractured

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Brian Gross, Boston: Monster Debut

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Phill Spiker, Minneapolis Star-Tribune: All Day Long

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Brian Gross, Boston: Selection Sunday

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Greg Manifold, Washington Post: Betting the Farm/Baseball Preview

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Michael Whitley, Vic Zeper and Joe Morse, Los Angeles Times: Armed and Dangerous Baseball Preview

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Infographics

Follow the jump for winners in the Breaking News Covers category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: INFOGRAPHICS
(53 entries in this category)

Todd Lindeman and Bonnie Berkowitz, Washington Post: Car of Tomorrow

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David Butler, Ed Wiederer and Brian Gross, Boston Globe: Hitting Zones

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Laura Stanton, Bonnie Berkowitz and Washington Post: Coaching Tree

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Daigo Fujiwara and Brian Gross, Boston Globe: Bonds

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Todd Lindeman and Bonnie Berkowitz, Washington Post: Mitchell Tree

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Breaking News Covers

Follow the jump for winners in the Breaking News Covers category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: BREAKING NEWS COVERS

Luke Knox, Arizona Republic: Mitchell Report (Revealed)

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Michael Tribble, Amy Brockett, Tim Ball, Matt Mansfield and Kevin Wendt, San Jose Mercury-News: Bill Walsh

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Wayne Kamidoi, New York Times: Mitchell Report

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Jon Wile and Patterson Clark, Washington Post: Everybody In the Pool/Selection Sunday

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Breaking News Inside

Follow the jump for winners in the Breaking News Inside Pages category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: BREAKING NEWS INSIDE PAGES

Josh Crutchmer, Omaha World-Herald: Always an Outsider (Callahan Fired)

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Josh Penrod, Lee Yarosh, Joe Ward and Amanda Cox, New York Times: Mitchell Report

(PDF for a closer look)
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Jon Wile and Greg Manifold, Washington Post: Mitchell Report

(PDF for a closer look)
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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Redesigns

Follow the jump for winners in the Redesigns category of the Best of Sports Design 2007.

Here is the link to all the winners and details.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: REDESIGNS
(before on the left, after on the right)

David Jack Browning, Houston Chronicle: NL Capsules

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Tracy Collins, Bill Pliske, Luke Knox, Joey Kirk, Diane Petitti, Des Shoe, Arizona Republic: Heat Index

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Ben Vankat and Josh Crutchmer, Omaha World-Herald: College World Series Game Breakdown.

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Vote here (multiple votes not allowed)

Best of SD 2007: Category Winners

Let the Best of SD voting begin! We'll close the voting on April 9. Like last year, you're limited to one vote per IP address, in hopes of keeping ballots from being stuffed.

This will serve as the catchall link to winners and details in the Best of Sports Design 2007. First up are the category winners:

WINNERS AND EDITOR'S CHOICE VOTING
Infographics
Breaking News Inside Pages
Breaking News Covers
Redesigns
Cover Design With Ads
Live Game Inside Pages
Enterprise/Feature Centerpiece
Posters/Photo Pages
Special Section/Enterprise Inside Pages
Special Coverage
Live Game Covers
Special Section Covers
WINNERS ONLY
Multimedia
College Designer
College Pages

Follow the jump for some frequently-asked questions about the Best of Sports Design 2007.

So, technically, nobody has asked any of these questions. But why let the facts get in the way of a good phrase? Below are some of the pertinent details about the Best of Sports Design 2007.

How many entries did we have, total?
776

And how many winners did we have, total?
68, counting those in the non-voting categories

What were the largest categories?
Special Section Covers (124) and Live Game Covers (99) led the way.

Who had the most winners?
In the 12 Editor's Choice Categories, the winners' breakdown is as follows:
T1. Boston Globe, Omaha World-Herald, Washington Post, Buffalo News — 8
5. LA Times — 7
6. NY Times — 3
T7. San Jose, Dallas, Columbus, Arizona Republic, Denver Post, Cleveland, — 2
T14 -- Miami, Chicago, Houston, San Diego, Kansas City, Fort Lauderdale, Minneapolis — 1

So, um, eight finalists for Omaha? you clearly rigged this contest.
(Also known as the "how the contest worked: question)
Nice try. Here's how the contest worked:

Entries were submitted to me at the SportsDesigner e-mail address. Rich and I both had access to all the entries.

I placed the entries, with names and papers attached to them, in their respective categories. The entries would look something like this:

Joe Smith and Jane Doe, Happyville Times, State Championship (link to jpeg or PDF here)

After that was done, I had someone else take all the names and papers off of each entry and assign a unique ID to each one, leaving only the ID and link. So that, in Live Game Covers, the above entry would now look like this:

LGC1: (link to jpeg or PDF here)

Care was taken to separate entries from the same paper, so that panelists wouldn't see the same work in succession.

After that was done to all the entries, ballots in each category were e-mailed out to each panelist.

Each category had a different set of panelists. No two panels were the same.

Panelists each ranked their top pages in each category (they may have ranked as few as 3 in the smallest categories and as many as 15 in the large Live Game Covers and Special Section Covers categories).

After the votes were in, we calculated winners using the same type of formula you'd see in a common AP poll: First place got 10 points, Second 9, Third 8, etc. (depending of course on category size and how many entries were ranked).

We then totaled up the points and averaged them, and the entries whose votes fell within (or very close to) the top seven percent in each category were named winners.

It was only at this point, after the winners were entered and final, that we went back and put the names and papers back with their entry IDs.

OK. But you still didn't explain the part about keeping conflicts of interest out of the voting.
Ah. Well, that's why we used an average instead of total points.

Panelists were not allowed to vote on their own papers or direct competitors. They were also empowered to decide if they had any other conflicts of interest they could not vote on.

If a panelist had a conflict of interest, that was noted and it did not count against that entry's average.

Each category had either six or seven panelists. So if there was a conflict, the conflicting vote would simply be left out when an entry was averaged. Say there were seven panelists. Most entries would averaged based on seven votes. But in a case of a conflict, an entry would be averaged based on six votes.

Unlike SND, we're not set up to simply have a conflict judge, so instead we have more judges per category and use an average instead of cumulative total to determine winners.

Was there a limit to entries a paper could submit?
No. But this is very important — There is NO correlation between the number of entries per paper and the number of winners that paper got. Some papers had more than 50 entries and did not win in any category, and a few papers that picked up 7-8 winners barely entered 10. In my opinion, that's a good thing.

Who were the panelists?
In no particular order, panelists this year were: Josh Crutchmer, Rich Boudet, Dave Elsesser, Tim Parks, Rob Schneider, Steve Cavendish, Matt Erickson, Derek Simmons, Michael Whitley, Vince Chiaramonte, Toby Carrig, Nate Billings, Nicole Bogdas, Scott Minister, Keeli Garza, Andrew Braford, Cindy Lacy, Chris Courtney, Mark Koenig, Joey Kirk, Luke Knox, Ben Meyers, John V. Smith, Josh Trudell, Jon Wile, Mike Strain, Mark McTyre, Harrison Goodman, Jolene Ross, Paul Wallen, Bill Bootz, Emmet Smith, Phill Spiker.

Each panelist was assigned to at two categories, with a few getting more than that either from the beginning or if we needed help late in the process when others would find themselves busy or logistically prevented from voting in a certain category.

Did you have any concerns with the contest this year?
It outgrew me this year, and next year, we're going to have to alter it somehow, particularly the process of entering. We need to be able to submit entries via the Web, including names and jpeg/pdf attachments, and have them uploaded to the correct database for each category. If anyone knows how to do this, I'd appreciate the help.

What about the small papers? You said the small papers would be recognized this year. Liar.
Over the course of the voting, I plan to note the highest-finishing small-paper entry and international entry in each category, where applicable. I'd hoped that we'd get enough entries fitting those two descriptions to separate them out in each category, but this year we did not.

You're an idiot. This contest is stupid. These winners are crap.
Yes. No. And no. But at the end of the day, this is still a site to discuss and learn, so if you have praise or criticisms, let them fly. We'll be doing this again next year (though not during March Madness).

When will Editor's Choice winners be announced?
The voting will close on April 9, and the winners will very slowly be revealed over the course of the following week, culminating with the Sports Designer of the Year announcement at the end of it all.

Sssssshhhhh. Be quiet. I'm visiting the InDesign Library.
(Sound of trumpets and drums)

Best of SD 2007: Multimedia/Colleges

We kick off the list of Best of Sports Design 2007 winners with three categories that we will not be voting on. We did name finalists in all three categories, but in these three, we will have no Editor's Choice voting. Follow the jump.

The first one is Multimedia. We're not voting on this category because it's not yet refined as a to the point it's fair to single one out. As many panelists said, this was all over the map, so we're sticking to winners only here. Congratulations to all:

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: MULTIMEDIA

Staff, Spokane Spokesman-Review: U.S. Figure Skating Championships
http://spokesmanreview.com/skate/
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Brian McGill, Tampa Tribune: Rays' Dream Stadium
http://www2-origin.tbo.com/static/special_reports/tbo-special-reports-sports-dream_stadium/
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Staff, Boston Globe: Mitchell Report Interactive Graphic
http://www.boston.com/interactive/graphics/071214_mitchell_report/

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The next two categories are the college categories, and they were both a clean sweep for the Indiana Daily Student. So instead of pitting the IDS against itself in Editor's Choice voting, we're settling for co-winners and a big congratulations in both categories.

BEST OF SPORTS DESIGN 2007: COLLEGE PAGES

Mark Koenig, Indiana Daily Student: Mental Game