Neil has abdicated his first place finish, leaving a first place tie between Ethan Bodnar and Paul Williams with Jeffrey Pierce coming in third place.

Neil bumped into a soft spot in our guidelines, using one of Keynote’s prefabricated templates to assist his design. After some deliberation – and on the recommendation of Neil, himself – we decided this wasn’t in the spirit of the competition.

This means:

1. Neil’s a real swell guy for bringing this to our attention.
2. Keynote comes stocked with some amazing prefab templates.
3. Ethan and Paul are entitled to the gift baskets described in the original first place announcement.
4. Among other recommendations, Jeffrey had the most unique visual hook of the remaining contestants.

This doesn’t mean:

1. Neil’s photography or writing is any less superb than we originally thought.

Thanks, apologies, it’s still been great.

Related:

1. The Contest Announcement
2. The Final Entries

[Important: see the retraction.]

Neil Winton. First place. Recipient of a gift basket including:

1. a subscription to Before & After magazine,
2. a blog-ready banner,

   <a href="/?p=333">
   <img src="/wp-content/uploads/designcomp1.jpg" width="150" height="114">
   </a>

   
3. an invitation to the judge’s panel of future design competitions.

The decision as explained by judge Dan Meyer:

In a project already tightly wound by constraints, Neil added several more. Each slide carries a photo along the top, broken at the bottom (same place same time every time) by a caption. He justifies each caption by a fixed gray line, sets each caption in the same font, begins each one with “I learned,” and ends each one with a year.

With all that, Neil has his design pinned down like a butterfly in a box. The effect is powerful and nevermore obvious than when you click through his slides quickly. With Neil’s presentation, you spend less and less time each slide figuring out where he’s stored his content (pictures at the top, captions at the bottom, the meat of the caption found just after “I learned”) and more time enjoying it.

It’s tempting to call his design “minimal.” It certainly looks simple. But deciding to constrain an already-constrained assignment is a thorny task, one which layers questions upon questions. By my eyes, Neil has answered all of them well, forming a tidy division between form and content then bringing them back together with a beautiful earthy color palette, winning a difficult competition by making it even more difficult.

The judges invite Neil to deliver an acceptance speech here, perhaps correcting our speculation and explaining his design. Congratulations are in order either way.

Related:

1. The Contest Announcement
2. The Final Entries

Announcement Schedule:

1. Second Place (tie): 09h00 PST
2. Second Place (tie): 12h00 PST
3. First Place: 15h00 PST