2020 competition facts and figures

  • February 27, 2021
800 508 Society for News Design

This year’s SND Best of Digital Design competition has attracted a record 1,764 entries from 29 countries. Last year judges worked through 1,315 pieces of immersive, interactive and visual journalism from 25 countries. 

Like last year, the largest number of entries came from the United States. U.S. news designers submitted nearly 1,200 entries this year, making up nearly 68% of the total. This is up from 823 entries from the U.S. last year. 

U.S. submissions far exceeded the levels from other countries. Hong Kong (79), Canada (59) and Denmark (58) were the next largest sources of entries, closely followed by China (50).

The Washington Post, The New York Times and Reuters were the top three sources of entries again this year, together making up 30% (536) of all entries.

In total, 12 gold medals and 37 silver medals were awarded. (Read all about 2020 medal winners here.)

The majority of entries (77%) to this year’s competition came from large organizations with more than 300 employees, more than 5 million average monthly visitors, and/or more than 100,000 subscribers. However, smaller organizations like The Markup, The Defector and The Pudding are also winning medals among other awards.

The most popular category was Format/multimedia elements. With 562 entries it made up nearly 33% of all submissions. Close behind was Information graphics with 400 entries (23%).

The new Health/Coronavirus subcategories in the Story page design and Infographics categories proved popular, attracting a total of 217 entries (12%). The next most popular section was Use of Original/Commissioned Illustrations (multiple) with 117 entries (6.6%). 

Just 28 entries were submitted under the new US Presidential Election section.