What is the judging criteria?
We have an agenda – to recognize and promote the kind of design that matters to newspaper readers. Our take on newspaper design is clearly different than some others, as evidenced by Alan Jacobson's call for a redesign of SND's competition. BFD is intended to recognize the kind of newspaper design that we believe is directly related to the future of newspapers from a readership and revenue standpoint – the kind that delivers a return on investment.

Who are the judges?
January's judges were Alan Jacobson of Brass Tacks Design, Eric Seidman of AARP and Bob Rose of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Each of them picked the same page independently and without discussing their selection prior to making their determination. Collectively, the three of them have just under 100 years of experience in newspapers. Nick Masuda from the Sun Journal in Lewiston, Maine, also agreed that the Pilot's page was the obvious choice for January's BFD.

Brass Tacks is actively recruiting judges for upcoming months, and we've already contacted several people who are undisputed leaders in the newspaper industry.

Two of this month's judges have ties to The Virginian-Pilot. What up with that?
On some days, Alan Jacobson loves The Virginian-Pilot. On other days it disappoints him. He hasn't been employed by The Virginian-Pilot for more than 15 years, and chances are he won't be employed by them any time soon because their design is in the capable hands of Deborah Withey – one of the best in the business. None of the judges have had any personal contact with January's winning designer, nor did any of them even know his name.

Does the winning page have to be built in QuarkXPress?
Quark understands that the winning page can be built using any software – or no software. They want the competition to be legitimate and they agree that software platform cannot be a criterion. Brass Tacks contacted 11 companies about sponsoring BFD, but only Quark responded promptly and enthusiastically, which indicates to us that they may care more about newspaper design than other vendors.

How can I be sure that my page will be considered?
We look at all the U.S. pages posted at newseum.org. Just make sure your page is posted there.

If my page isn't posted at newseum.org, how can it get consideration?
Send your page to us via email and we'll consider it.

How is Brass Tacks Design compensated for administering BFD?
All proceeds (cash and prizes) go directly to the designer. Neither Alan Jacobson nor Brass Tacks Design receive any compensation from Quark.

Why was there no advance notice of the monthly award from Quark?
Quark finalized their sponsorship at 8:30 PM on January 31st, barely enough time to rebuild the brasstacksdesign.com homepage to include the announcement and update the BFD page to announce the winner for January.

Why is Quark sponsoring BFD?
Quark has played a significant role in newspaper design since the introduction of QuarkXPress 20 years ago. Newspaper design as we know it would not be what it is today without the groundbreaking work done by designers using QuarkXPress.

With its monthly award, Quark is giving something very significant to newspaper designers, even if they don't use QuarkXPress. We think that's mighty big of them.

Some of the daily BFDs don't seem so special. What gives?
The goal of BFD is not to merely pick a beautiful and flawless front page from the countless number that are published each year – the SND contest does a pretty good job of that by allowing anyone to enter their very best pages regardless of when they were published.

In contrast, BFD picks the best front page published on one particular day. Based on that narrower criteria, it's likely that the best front design each day will be less than perfect. Clearly, there will be better front pages published on other days by other papers. But that doesn't negate the fact that we think each day's BFD was better than rest, its flaws notwithstanding.

However, if you think a better page was published that day, by all means please mention it in the comments section.