Design thread

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

Just to play devil's advocate here:

What if the Gwinnett Post took that cover photo at the very beginning of Spring Training before the AJC tournament section was even put out? Do you scrap your original idea because someone else did it? What arguments do you make for and against going with the original concept in this situation?

As The Washingtonian pointed out, the AJC's cover wasn't exactly an original concept either. Houston's football tab was all kids like this, among other examples from the past two or three years.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/25*

i'm taller in real life

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/25*

Liar.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

If it was their original idea (with so much stuff out there these days, those are very rare), you don't scrap it just because someone's similar idea is published first. Would you not use a great headline you came up with if you noticed during the night that someone on another Web site had something similar? It's still your "original" idea in your product, right?

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

Our desk spends more time making sure words are hyphenated correctly than writing an engaging headline.

The cover is usually the last thing they look at on the desk. A great headline is rarely written by the desk, but by the designer or the editor. And I am usually busy moving stuff around because the photo editor wants a lame photo of someone who didn't even play in the game on the cover and the sports editor is gone.

I hate it when I come up with a great headline and then look on espn.com and see it there.

I will usually change it or at least try to think of something else.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

Why would you think of something else if you thought of it independently? Is the Internet that powerful that it can negate your thoughts? I'm not sure how many readers would see both the online headline and yours, and of the ones that noticed they were the same, I don't think many would care.

Back in the summer of '98, I had two headlines in the span of a month that a few days later showed up in SI as their headlines for those respective events. Had SI seen the paper I was working at during the time in between the pages I produced and their deadline, do you think SI would have changed their headlines. Don't think so.

Does the copy desk write all the sports headlines? That can sometimes be a problem. If you've got a good headline, fight for it. It's often hard to convince copy editors of this, but headline writing is not, nor should it be, the domain solely of "the desk.". Anyone involved in the production of the paper should want the best headline (as part of the best product), even if the janitor happens to come up with the idea.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

If the web has it, they usually have it up within seconds of the event. That at least makes me consider thinking more on it, since I have more time than they do, and theoretically should be able to think of something better and different.

If I can't think of anything better I stick with it. Usually too busy to go around checking what web sites headlines are anyway.

Its not an issue except for World Series, Super Bowl or other big live events, since newspapers are more localized and the web is worldwide.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

It shouldn't be an issue then, either.

A good hed is a good hed.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

Well I would rather have something good and unique. To each his/her own.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

I've decided to give this subject it's own sub-board. Please feel free to create new topics on the sub board.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

Maybe I read it wrong, but was there concern about the ethical issue of using kids as photo illustration?

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/29*

The issue was the Gwinnett paper (in suburban Atlanta) using an idea very similar to the one employed just a few weeks earlier by the Atlanta paper.