Robert Suhay, designer Prize: $1,000 and software from Quark
"…None topped The Virginian-Pilot for elegance and inventiveness, making it January's best front design.
The Pilot provided a child's perspective on Martin Luther King – an inspired and unique solution. The weather package combined a headline that cut to the heart of the matter, an energetic photo and an informational graphic that served up the forecast. Then the Pilot turned a boring meeting photo into must-see V-P with a very clever, but telling, headline.
This page shows how to use all the tools of presentation (headlines, typography, photographs, illustration, informational graphics, white space) to maximum effect."
Special recognition to Ryan Smith, news designer
This page from the Chicago Tribune was not eligible for January's award because it was published in December, but it demands special attention.
"…Remarkably, the Chicago Tribune brought elegance to what is truly a gruesome story about a terrible human being. The large image contrasted with the understated, diminutive, one-word headline surrounded by white space – no other paper whispered the headline. But sometimes a whisper is the best way to get someone's attention. Generous use of white space framed the elements of the Hussein package. Unlike some 6-column solutions, this one had a much tighter crop for more impact and used the space surrounding the image for placement of the headline."
Send an email direct to Brass Tacks Design. Click to see all the BFDs in the archives. A selection appears below.
The major Chicago dailies provided a study in contrast with their Super Bowl packages. The Chicago Sun-Times was high-impact while the Chicago Tribune was en Español. The Kansas City Star gave its readers the big kiss-off.
Today's best front design comes from the Winston-Salem Journal and its tall turbines.
In terms of impact, tabloid newspapers typically outdo broadsheets. But broadsheets have one advantage over tabs: their front pages are twice as big. Most newspapers really use this size advantage to good advantage.
It's one thing to be big, but it's more important to be informative. Today's Winston-Salem Journal used its broadsheet for impact and information by showing the relative size of wind turbines.
Room for improvement: The brown tone behind the turbines represents the tallest building in the city. Unfortunately, it reduces the contrast between the artwork and the white of the newsprint. It also created an unnecessarily awkward text wrap. The page may have appeared more elegant if the silhouette had been represented by an outline rather than a fill.
Send an email direct to Brass Tacks Design. Click to see all the BFDs in the archives. A selection appears below.
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.
A new design to boost single-copy sales in a market where three papers go head-to-head>>
Do 6-column photos boost readership and revenue?>>
Who would have thought that TV books would lead to the end of newspapers as we know them?>>
Len Downie's memo calls for more emphasis on design.>>
Read our abbreviated version of API's report. It'll only take a minute and it's worth it.>>
See the charts that show why now is the time to redesign for revenue.>>
A practical, step-by-step approach with examples from newspapers large and small.>>
Learn from KnightRidder's mistakes at the Inky and the Merc.>>
This online redesign is not enough to please users and advertisers.>>
Design does matter to readers, but only if it's reader driven.>>
If newspaper markets are so different,
why do most papers look so much alike?>>
I wish you luck and offer some advice.>>
This overhyped trend is a non-starter for America.>>
We can make a difference, but not by chasing awards.>>
At stake is nothing less than newspapers as we know them.>>
A thousand awards a year? Gimme a break.>>
They never said higher RBS scores would sell more newspapers.>>
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