What makes this page a BFD: Special treatment for every story.
Newseum had only half as many front pages as normal, so the pickins were slim. Still, there were some standouts. The Times Daily goes wild with above-the-nameplate promos to six different stories, even though research shows this isn't an effective means for driving single-copy sales. The Kokomo Tribune uses an all-promo front on Sunday.
The Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune both used a multi-mugshot technique to show the human toll of two different stories about death. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution went a step further to made their centerpiece story stand out with an unusual layout and a side-saddle nameplate.
The Orange County Register did the best job of making each of their Sunday offerings seem special. The two promos beneath the nameplate were probably more effective than the half dozen used by other papers. The package on Rick Warren was nicely framed with white space to separate it from unrelated elements. The refer to "Ready, Set, Go" had plenty of pop without taking up a lot of space. Even the ad in the lower right corner was handled with care – keeping art out of the bottom strip was a good idea. And the McGwire package had impact above the fold while providing a strong art element beneath the fold.
Room for improvement: The skiing promo would have had more pop if the image size of the skier had been larger. We didn't need to see the entire mountain – a tight shot of a skier's face would have been more eye-catching.
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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
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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
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See before and after, see more pages and read the stories.
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