Use of Information Graphics and Graphic Illustrations ( 10,001 and Over Multi-Day,5,001 - 10,000 Multi-Day,Under 5,000 Multi-Day)Back
Place Name: First Place Contestant Name: Fargo/Moorhead - The Forum Entry Title: Tokyo 2020 Entry Credit: Troy Becker Judge Comment: This print graphic is attractive -- gorgeous, really -- clean and simple, yet very sophisticated if you look at the details, with the perfectly executed cutouts designed to create 3-D effects. It serves the purpose of conveying basic information, then lets you go deeper, and it's effectively made to be the dominant art element of a page.
Place Name: Second Place Contestant Name: Mankato - The Free Press Entry Title: Mankato Free Press COVID Dashboard Entry Credit: Annie Jennemann Judge Comment: This is a great resource of information that's both thorough and simple. You can look at all the data for the region or each county basically on one or two screens -- not a lot of scrolling required -- and it's all easy to follow. Yet there's a lot of data in the offering, and it's kept up-to-date. The only flaw is with the daily-case graphs and the confusing negative numbers; those are distorting all the previous data, which is now appearing as virtually a straight line across the top. Overall, great, useful work here, and it was a close call between first and second place.
Place Name: Third Place Contestant Name: Brainerd Dispatch Entry Title: COVID-19 graphic Entry Credit: Chelsey Perkins Judge Comment: This is a good, simple and attractive interactive resource for the county and area. The animated graphic with easy-to-read, even fun figures and graphs provides pretty thorough data people are interested in. And then the cumulative data at the bottom is another great resource.
Competition Comment: In this competition with a lot of online interactive graphics, the Fargo/Moorhead's print graphic advancing the Tokyo Olympics gets the edge because it's simply gorgeous while providing both basic and deeper information. The Mankato COVID dashboard may not be so artistic but provides thorough data in a simple way, as does the Brainerd Dispatch's online graphic. Shout-outs go out to the interactive timelines of the Detroit Lakes Tribune and Duluth News Tribune. These are web pages with a *lot* to read -- too much to look at in one sitting, which is a slight problem, but they're great as a long-term resource that people can go back to repeatedly (I hope people do). The Duluth graphics have the problem of presenting as just huge on the screen -- such large elements and type that require a lot of scrolling. Still, the tremendous amount of work that went into these should be commended.
