The Straits Times wins 109 awards at Society for News Design competition

SINGAPORE – Shopping for clothes should be an enjoyable experience. Yet, for many women, finding pieces that both allow them to express themselves and fit well is often an uphill task.

At the heart of the problem is that different labels size their clothes differently. A size M at one store might fit differently from a size M at another.

For The Straits Times’ digital graphics correspondent Stephanie Adeline, experiencing frustration while shopping for clothes inspired her to embark on a project to illustrate this less-than-ideal experience for women.

“My observation is that it’s very hard to find something that fits you perfectly… It tends to fit quite well in the waist area, but not in the hips,” said Ms Adeline, who was speaking to an audience about her story at an SND workshop on April 24. “So it goes in any combination for different women, because women’s bodies are so diverse – it’s not all hourglass, it’s not all pear-shaped, so I wanted to test this to see if there is data to back up my experience.”

Her interactive feature unpacking the issue, Inside the confusing world of women’s clothing sizes, emerged as one of the top stories at The Society for News Design’s (SND) Creative Competition. It won one gold, three silvers, one bronze and two awards for excellence.

Now into its 47th year, the competition organised by the US-based SND, is regarded as one of the most prestigious awards for news design and visual journalism globally.

According to SND, the judges described the entry as highly innovative, “with a wide range of elements including infographics and 3D features that enhance personalisation and storytelling”.

“They noted that the fundamentals are strong alongside boundary-pushing design, making it engaging to explore.”

To pull together the data for the story, Ms Adeline and the team from ST surveyed 105 women on their experiences shopping for clothes and studying size charts from eight brands.

Besides telling the story with charts, videos and an interactive tool, the core team of seven took it a step further by using 3D modelling to visualise what different brands think different sizes look like, and how these compare to actual women bodies.

The team 3D-printed about 40 dolls with different body types and invited five female colleagues at ST to attempt to identify one that represents them best.

The story illustrates the common difficulties faced when shopping for different types of clothing, explains how size charts vary across brands due to reasons such as different target markets, and provides practical tips for shoppers on how to shop for clothes that fit them.

The story capped a strong ST strongest showing to date at the competition. This was the first time ST won four golds in a single edition of the competition.

These included golds for a feature on noise pollution, as well as in both the individual and staff art direction portfolio categories.

In total, ST took home a total of 109 awards – four golds, 12 silvers, 28 bronzes and 65 awards of excellence across both digital and print works – on April 24, a leap from 53 awards last year.

ST editor Jaime Ho said, “These awards are a recognition of The Straits Times’ commitment to design, visual journalism and new ways of storytelling. We consider these essential to engaging our readers and intend to continue to innovate.”

“I am especially heartened by our portfolios getting awarded the highest accolade for the first time. It is a testament to the excellence, not just of individual stories, but of our body of work.”

Commenting on ST’s wins from the competition this year, Ms Adeline added, “I think it just speaks to how our teamwork is like, and how we are very collaborative and always support each other…Every single person who worked on all of our projects made it better in some way.”

More than 100 publications globally participated in the competition, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, South China Morning Post, Reuters and Bloomberg.

Here are some of ST’s winning works:

^{No quiet at home: The reality of living with Singapore’s traffic noise}

In one of the world’s densest cities, peace and quiet are hard to find. The traffic never stops, and for some, the constant sound is often impossible to escape.

Diving deep into the issue of noise pollution in Singapore, a core team of four at ST collaborated with Professor Gan Woon-Seng, who teaches audio engineering at National Technological University (NTU), and senior research engineer Santi Peksi from NTU’s Smart Nation Translation Lab to record sound levels inside 25 residences across the city.

To make this story about visually captivating, the team made use of sound waves to demonstrate the volume and texture of traffic noises heard from various neighbourhoods in Singapore.

Readers can also deepen interaction with the story by clicking on icons to hear the different types of traffic noise heard in an area – from buses to motorcycles, cars, airplanes and ships.

The story went on to snag one silver, one bronze and an award of excellence.

READ MORE HERE

_{Yip Pin Xiu: Queen of Grit}

Published in the lead up to the 2025 World Para Swimming Championships, the story about Singapore’s first Paralympic gold medallist takes a close look at Yip Pin Xiu’s swimming techniques and strategies.

From how she positions herself at the starting line to how she depends solely on her arms to propel herself in the water, the story brings readers through a detailed look at Yip’s entire process of swimming as they scroll, using shots of her both above and under the water.

Helmed by a core team of four at ST, the story about Singapore’s most decorated paralympian won a bronze and an award of excellence.

READ MORE HERE

_{How hawker signboards tell the story of Singapore}

Unlike restaurants, hawkers do not have multi-page menus that detail the stories behind their food, nor a dining room to immerse guests in their culinary vision. All the information about who they are and what they offer has to be communicated through the signboards perched above their stalls.

Put together by a core team of seven at ST, the story examines how the various components of signboards – language, colour, font, photography and text – each plays a role in sending a message, as well as how cultural influences and norms shape the look of them.

The story, which also examined the results of a survey of more than 100 people on their interactions with signboards, won a bronze and an award of excellence.

READ MORE HERE

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