Every year since 1981, Print has taken a snapshot of American design with the Regional Design Annual. For the 31st edition, we assembled a crack team of judges—Kim Bost, of The New York Times; Brigitta Bungard, of the Museum of Modern Art; Joshua Darden, of the Darden Studio; Michael Freimuth, of Sagmeister Inc.; John Kudos and Kiki Katahira, of Studio Kudos; and Pum and Jake Lefebure, of Design Army—to help us sort through 4,980 submissions from every corner of the country. They chose the 421 best pieces, from an imaginary map of New Jersey based on Bruce Springsteen lyrics to an ingenious storefront display made of packing pellets. Gathered together, the work offers a portrait of American design today, in all its messy brilliance. To round out our look back at the year that was, our regular book- and album-art columnists, Claire Lui and Douglas Wolk, picked their five favorites from the past 12 months; and Steven Heller asked Stefan Sagmeister, Jessica Helfand, and others about how the last decade’s seismic shifts in technology have reshaped the field of graphic design.

 

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And it's not too late to enter next year's competition. Click here to enter now for a chance to have your work featured alongside the best and brightest in the design world today. Good luck!