Design thread

We've had a bunch of really great threads recently answering design questions and discussing redesigns at some of the larger papers, so I thought I'd start a thread for all of the designers around here to ask questions, share ideas and critique stuff they see.

I've asked Shotglass to help me out, too, but that doesn't mean you can't offer up advice or opinions. Even if you aren't a designer!

I'll start it off -- saw this page today, from the News and Record:



I liked the flag at the top of the page. Good pull-out information, even if it looks a little on the deep side.

Thoughts?

 

Single-subject cover blowouts like this ... I think they're generally used too easily by newspapers.

Let's say you're a Greensboroian (a Greensboroite?) who is not a golfer. There is absolutely nothing there to pull in that reader.

I find it indicative of being too close to the situation. An ME or the SE gets caught up in the "big event" and says, "You can't play this big enough."

Well, yeah. You CAN play anything too big. Only exceptions might be the World Series in the home cities of the teams involved ... and the Super Bowl, as much as anything because there's seldom anything else cover-worthy on that particular day.


Now. As far as the page itself ... beautifully executed. Great balance; upper half of the page is going to grab people. I think the art is good; great emotion.

 

Hey Shottie -- would your opinion change if this is a special section or daily wrap for the event?

 

Oh, my, yes, Carrie. Completely different situation.

If you're running this as a wraparound, then it nails it. And to be honest, I hadn't thought about that possibility here. Do you know if that was the case here?

 

The folio at the very top says special section.

 

Oh. Your eyes are better than mine!

But I think you see my point. There are a lot of cases where you have "secondary" events getting full-page sports front coverage just because they happen to be there in town ... golf tournaments, NASCAR races, etc.

 

Generally speaking, I like it, but one little nitpick: Wouldn't the column be better off on the right side? After I got the gist of the headline and the photo and all, my eyes went to the lower left expecting to see the start of the gamer (for lack of a better term). Yet the column's there.

Or is this just more empirical evidence on the state of my beer-addled brain?

 

It's generally accepted that a reader's eye starts upper right and goes in a clockwise circle on the page.

 

Shows what I know. :-[

 

It's OK, Hustle.
It's the same school of thought that puts the most important news story at the top of the right-hand column.
You know, the news hole?

 

I like the look, but the sub-head bothers me.

"CHOI LEAVES NO DOUBT WHO'S THE CHAMP" just reads odd to me since golf is not a judged sport. The man with the lowest score won, so why would there be doubt?

Maybe I'm nitpicking.

 

Perhaps showing why I'm not a designer, I'm not super keen on the depth of the top stuff. I mean, you get nothing above the fold but a cutout, some scores, and a big-ass headline.

Completely unfolded, it's fine. But when I first flip through the folded-up paper to get to the sports, that isn't grabbing me. I need good art above the fold...that top part doesn't fulfill that to me.