What makes this page a BFD: Making the story, headline and photo match.
By all rights, the San Francisco Chronicle should have had the Best Front Design for today's story of hometown girl Nancy Pelosi's election to Speaker of the House. But the Chicago Sun-Times went a step further. They chose an more exuberant photo that matched the emotion of the day and paired that with a headline that worked perfectly with the photo.
The Chronicle's photo lacked the power of the job that Pelosi has ascended to, making it look as if she had just become homeroom teacher of the year – a gracious solution, but not a stirring one. It wasn't necessary to see the flag and the gavel – human stories are told by showing the emotion. The StarTribune called it "A jubilant day of firsts," but their photo seemed anything but.
Several papers led with stories about the weather. The Hartford Courant asked, "Where's winter?" A much more inspired and inventive solution was seen on the cover of Link, published by The Virginian-Pilot. RedEye, had the most attention-getting cover, but it did make readers work to find the content.
Room for improvement: The Sun-Times has gone a bit too far with its nameplate tchotchkes – the flag, the weather, the helmet and whatever that green, leafy thing is. The promos at the top could have been handled better with a tighter crop on Hoffman and fewer words in the promo on the right: "Our principal gagged us" would have been sufficient.
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ONLINE NEWSPAPER DESIGN Read Steve Outing's interview with Alan Jacobson and learn why newspaper web sites are seriously flawed. Then see alternatives.
EDITORIAL, CLASSIFIED & ONLINE NEWSPAPER DESIGN Our redesigns are catalysts for positive change. Visit the gallery to see how we've transformed publications and websites. EDITORIAL NEWSPAPER DESIGN
NEWSPAPER DESIGN WHITEPAPER A redesign is a waste of time and money if it doesn't deliver a return on investment. Download our report to learn how to make your redesign pay off, then see how four newspapers boosted readership and revenue by following our advice. TARGETED PUBLICATIONS
INTERACTIVE TOUR See in detail how a content-driven redesign did more than make a community daily look better – it made it a better paper. RADICAL STRATEGIES FOR CIRCULATION WOES
A newspaper war, that is. The Sunday Star Times, New Zealand's largest newspaper, faces fierce competition on the newsstand from two tabloids. So it was redesigned to improve its above-the-fold presentation. The complete story will appear here and in the next issue of SND's DESIGN.
The Californian's redesign earned it a spot on Editor & Publisher's list of “Ten That Do it Right.” According to E&P, Bakersfield is appealing to its “really, really conservative market with a really, really radical redesign.”
And it’s working.
Circulation stops are down and revenue is up – over a thousand inches in the redesigned real estate section alone.
See before and after, see more pages and read the stories.
The Eureka (CA) Reporter was just a 6,000-circ. weekly in 2004. Our radical yet elegant redesign helped this startup weekly grow to a daily in less than two years. The Reporter goes head-to-head with an established daily owned by Dean Singleton, who told The San Francisco Chronicle last month that his competitor, “does some good design things.” The Society of News Design agrees – they cited this redesign as one of the best in the world. See more pages.
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