Syracuse University/Society for News Design

A panel of 12 judges will begin reviewing cover entries soon after the competition’s Dec. 18 deadline.

"We began the cover competition as a way to get more design concepts for the annual book cover and it has been so successful we have continued this way to generate excellent covers," says Competition Director Marshall Matlock. He says the Competition Committee received 42 entries for the 30th Edition book, which is now being sold by the SND office.

The 31st edition book name will change to The Best of News Design^TM to more accurately represent the content, according to Matlock. The name change is being made because the book content pertains to more than newspapers. For the first time SND will accept entries from non-newspaper magazines. In past years only magazines published and distributed with a newspaper were accepted.

With the addition of magazine entries, the international competition will have more than 125 categories and sub-categories.

The deadline for e-mailing cover designs to Matlock is Dec. 18. Judges are expected to begin cover reviews by Dec. 20 with the winner selected in early January 2010, Matlock says.

The winning cover will appear on the book that showcases winners from the 2009 publishing year.

Covers concepts must be 9 inches wide x 12 inches. An additional .25-inch is required for any side that will bleed beyond the trim size.

Designers are asked to submit high-resolution (300 dpi at full size) jpg, tiff or PDF files.

It is recommended that the name of the book --The Best of News Design^TM -- appears on the cover as well as the name of the organizations, which may appear near the bottom of the cover, at the designer's discretion. Also the edition number has appeared on most past covers. The cover is normally printed in full color.

Send entries to Matlock at cmm@dreamscape.com. Please include the word Cover in the subject line along with your last name. If more than one e-mail is sent, please each one beginning with #1.

Include each full-size cover as an e-mail attachment. In the text include your name, publication, if applicable; job title, full business address, phone number and preferred e-mail address.

There is no limit to the number of covers a designer may enter but it is suggested that only one cover be attached to each e-mail sent. Covers may be stuffed if needed to save disk space. All submissions will be quickly acknowledged.

Entries become the property of the Society for News Design. At the discretion of judges, SND reserves the right to have no winning cover. Past cover entries are ineligible.

With the addition of non-newspaper magazine categories the competition will include a broader spectrum of print design work, said Matlock. "We would like the cover to represent the book content of excellent print designs," he says.