Page Critiques and Comment

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:

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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.