Irish Examiner scoops two top design awards

THE Irish Examiner has won two prestigious awards for excellent newspaper design from the American Society for News Design.

Both awards were for front pages in the breaking news section of the design competition, which is regarded as the Oscars of newspaper design.

This is the second time this year that the newspaper’s trademark front-page treatment of major stories has won it international honours for design.

An award of excellence from the European Newspaper Awards will be presented to the paper at a ceremony in April in Vienna, for front-page coverage of the death of Pope John Paul II.

The two winning entries for the Society of News Design awards both had strong visual representation of major stories involving actions by the Provisional IRA.

The first was the IRA’s historic declaration on July 28 last that its leadership had “ordered an end to the armed campaign”. The second was the commencement of IRA decommissioning two months later on September 26.

Editor Tim Vaughan said the awards were a well-deserved recognition of the extraordinary talent and creativity of his editorial colleagues.

“The mission of the Society of News Design is to enhance communication around the world through excellence in visual journalism, and I’m delighted they consider that we are doing the business in that regard,” he said.