Page Critiques and Comment

“Design is fine, but not at the expense of content.”

That was a comment from a reader after last week’s introduction of the newly-redesigned Los Angeles Times. About 80 percent of the 300 or so reader comments were negative, which is partly to be expected.

With my own redesign projects, I have found that about half the readers don’t want a thing changed in their newspaper, no matter what it is. Ever.  So finding readers who don’t like your design changes is not unusual, though I think 80 percent is a little high.

One of the most telling  comments came from a reader who said that each design change were sold as design “improvements,” such as more white space, larger photos and headlines and simply fewer pages. But they all basically meant less content.

Readers notice these things, and many are not happy. I have been railing against cutting back on content as a way to save money for years. It is like a race car driver deciding to make the engine smaller as a way to reduce weight. Uh, won’t that make you go slower? With newspapers: uh, won’t that make your paper less attractive to your core readers?

A number of readers said they were going to cancel their subscriptions, the ultimate measure of success or failure.

Design IS important, but we must never forget it is CONTENT that sells paper. Make sure your design changes improve your content, not just make your paper look better. Do your research. How do you do that? Next post!

Most journalists are writers. They think in and about words. Sure we have photojournalists and news artists, but the lingua franca of newspapers is the narrative. Every event should be covered by a story.

But the truth is the narrative, especially the traditional inverted-pyramid format, is good for some things and not so good for others.  Thus, the growing use of ALTs or Alternate Story Formats or ASFs or whatever the current nomenclature is. (Has anyone else noticed what a Tower of Babel we have in newspaper design terminology?)

Anyway, the high visual/low text approach of ASFs is certainly one good strategy to cover those events that lend themselves to a more list-like approach. Why waste time crafting a narrative when an ASF would achieve the same ends in an easier-to-digest, more visually interesting way?

Here is a brief little video about one such instance. For a larger-screened version, check out the version at the News Design School online newspaper design tutorials site.

alt-blog.swf

I used to think that small papers were better positioned to meet the challenges we are facing today in our industry.  Because they weren’t burdened by being part of a large newspaper group, because I thought they were thus more nimble, I believed that they could move quickly when technology dictated what they needed to do to succeed.

I am beginning to change my mind. What I see instead is that small newspapers are stretched so thin in terms of staff and revenue that it is hard to keep up with the changes in technology and the costs involved.

Software needs constant updating. The move to the web adds additional work each week.  It means that staff members have to learn new programs, and it means that they not only have to put up the paper each week, they have to move stories and photos to the web site.

Add to that fact that many journalists who run small newspapers are having a difficult time switching to the new paradigm of social networking websites and the like, and it’s no wonder that these are parlous times.

I don’t think we can fight the inevitable. We need to embrace the new technologies, new ways of doing things, and do the best we can to train our staffs to produce the best product for our new newspaper readers. The good news is that embracing some of the new technologies can save time and money. That’s what we need to focus on.

You simply must find the time to plug in to the brave new world of newspaper publishing.

A number of daily newspapers unveiled redesigns recently, but what got my attention was the vertical nameplate (why in the heck do some people insist on calling it the “masthead”?)in the Hartford Courant. Here we have the oldest daily newspaper in the U.S. and not only do they Kate Moss the thing by making it thinner, but they make it thinner, too. By that I mean the newsprint size and the number of pages during the week.

Then, to make matters worse, they toss in a tres moderne nameplate in traditional blackletter in a vertical position. Then they take my favorite dot (the period that has been at the end of their name) and make it the dot before com, referring to the web site. I feel sorry for that good ol’ period. And don’t they know that to fight the new skinny look, they need to go with horizontal stripes, not vertical?

And what’s with the CT in front of every standing head? Don’t their readers know they are in Connecticut?

I have always liked the design of the Courant, and they still have great art and typography and ample white space. But I think they botched this one, even though I understand the financial pressures and their desire to connect more closely with the web site. Here is a sample:

If you have stumbled across this blog without going through the main site and you are interested in newspaper design training or a redesign consultant, make sure you visit our home page at News Design School.

In an effort to bring you quality information, News Design School is proud to introduce Dr. Design to answer all your questions and solve your design problems.

Jason, Texas: Why do some typefaces have them little feet kind of things on’em and some don’t?

Dr. Design: Well, Tex, those typeface-ical varmints hanging off the end of the letters are called serifs, after the Persian Shah of Omar Serif, who introduced them to the Greeks around 1000 B.C. The Greeks are credited with inventing serifs and then the Romans stole the idea (along with much else from Greek intellectual life).  That’s why we often refer to serif faces as “Roman” type. All that was left for the Greeks was gibberish type used as a placeholder, but they took it because the Italians were putting together a serious bid for what we know now as Greeked type. Italy then had to settle for italics, type that couldn’t even stand up straight, and quite frankly, is a bit effiminate.

That’s when the French got ticked off about being left out of typeface design, and using a special guillotine, Marie Antoinetted the serifs right off. Their general lack of imagination led to letters with same-width strokes, and of course no serifs. That’s why type with the serifs tragically removed by French typeface butchers uses the term “sans serif,” which translates roughly to “Sacrebleu! Zay are gone!”

Tex, hope that helps.

E-mail questions to Dr. Design at doc@newsdesignschool.com.

Actually, the time is long past for newspapers to begin conceptualizing their web site as their main product and their print product as support for the web site. Many papers have already switched to this model, and though it is really too early to tell whether it is a good strategy, it makes sense to me.

I have been saying for years that eventually the print product will become like a TV Guide for the web site. In other words, the paper will provide summaries, lots of names and faces (can you say hyper-local?), and dailies anyway will be published less frequently. The paper will “tease” to the web, where the meat of the information can be found.

First, this will be cheaper. Imagine if your paper could cut its newsprint bill in half. That’s another one or two web workers right there. Second it plays into the younger cohorts’ preference for quick-n-dirty reads on the web or cell phone, and you better be pandering to their tastes and preferences if you hope to have a business in 10 years.

This will take a re-wiring of many “older” journalists’ brains, who will fight until they have to pry that pica pole from their cold, dead, ink-stained hand.

But it is really pretty much the same thing we newspaper folks have always done. Deliver what people want and need in a compelling presentation in words and visuals. Just do it in pixels instead of ink. Yes, you will need to learn some new skills, but what could be more exciting?

Enjoy becoming a pixel-stained wretch. (More to come next post.)

First off, The Smithfield (VA) Times is a weekly paper that I redesigned a few years back. (So, naturally I like it!). The important part of any redesign, however, is how well the staff takes the plan to heart and keeps it going. Editor/Publisher John Edwards and his small staff have done a superb job.

The layout is traditional and clean. The teasers beneath the flag include a Quote of the Day, which I believe has been popular. The headline size and weight are just right. Too many weeklies tend to use heads that are too small. The main art is a colorful stand-alone photo and it works well. The eye movement is into the rest of the page, which is always preferred. The page is anchored with a strongly played story in a box with a fever-line chart. It effectively uses an odd measure, breaking the six-column grid. The head-size is perfect, and the story is amply framed with white space inside the box.

Compare that to the Fourth of July story above, which is much too tight. If your gutters are 1 pica, I would recommend going with a frame inset of 1p6, though you should cheat a little smaller for a 1-col. box. Give your content room to breathe!

The color bars at the top and bottom of the page keep it grounded nicely. The use of the same typeface family for all the heads gives the page a consistent, professional look. Overall, a fine page.

Here is a quick (and dirty) sample of how we will do our critiques of your paper. Because the critique videos are large, we will create the video and commentary and then send it to you on a CD. This sample is very brief compared to a complete critique.

Sample critique. It will work better if you give the video a few seconds to load before you start playing it.

Everywhere we turn we see stories about the coming death of newspapers. Just in the past few weeks we’ve read about job cuts at the Palm Beach Post, the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere.

At the same time, we see that the Orlando Sentinel has gone through a major redesign. This is even after research has shown that redesigns don’t do much to stanch the losses in circulation.

Nonetheless, design remains an important, maybe even critical, component of a successful newspaper. This is not because it is important to “look good,” but because of what computer interface designers refer to as the “user experience.” I also like to toss in “branding” as well.

Several years back, Peter Morville listed seven aspects that comprise the user’s experience with your web site www.semanticstudios.com/publications/semantics/000029.php). You would be well served to pay attention to each as you create the design and content of your print product and your web site.

Valuable: This should be obvious, but often isn’t. Are you providing content that is valuable to your customers, or are you providing content YOU think they ought/need to know? Your customers will pay for value.

Useful: This is tied to value, which is more of an “idea” issue. Being useful means that you are providing content and design that your customers can actually use to improve their lives quickly and easily.

Usable: Do the navigation bars make sense and do the buttons on your web site appear in the proper order or do you make your web visitors think? (Don’t ever make your readers think about navigation!) This is where good, user-centered design comes in.

Desirable: This where the look and feel of your products elicit positive emotional reactions in your customers. Again, this involves creating good designs. Apple understands this very well.

Findable: Can your readers find their way easily through your content, whether in print or pixels? Do you anchor recurring features in the print product?

Accessible: Are your news products accessible to all?

Credible: Do your presentation of news and information inspire credibility? This can even be affected by design, which is not just a cosmetic add-on. The design and organization of your news products can say a lot about your “brand” of credibility, if done professionally and thoughtfully. This is why I think redesigns done largely with cosmetic goals in mind are the ones most likely not to succeed.

If you are paying attention to these components of how your readers experience your news products, then you are probably doing well.

All this ties into the “branding” and marketing of your paper and its web site. Wouldn’t it be nice if, when people in your area are asked to think of words that describe your paper, their list reads like Morville’s?

Let’s use this site as a place to post our best work and ask for comment and critique. General text posts are of course welcome, too.

Who’s up first?