Robert Suhay, designer Prize: $1,000 and software from Quark
"…The newspaper with the best front design for April 2007 is The Virginian-Pilot, for lack of a better description, for being The Virginian-Pilot.
Again and again and again, The Pilot shows the rest of the industry – and the rest of the world – how to raise newspapering to a high art, with pages that are truly moving. It's a pity other newspapers haven't caught on. Only the Pilot repeatedly approaches poetry in its storytelling.
No other paper speaks so powerfully, so eloquently, so often.
Dwelling on the details of this page misses the point. But one detail worthy of note – the care taken with the solitary piece of art on this page: The memorial ribbon at the top of the page is a weave of Virginia Tech's school colors.
Link got it right the day before. The Pilot took it up yet another notch, making Norfolk, VA the world's capital for newspaper design, as Allentown, PA was a generation ago.
4.30.07
What makes this page a BFD:
Dramatic, yet unpredictable.
On any given day, America's front pages look more alike than anything else. The differences rarely have any distinction. That wasn't the case today!
Both the Beaver County Times and the RepublicanAmerican went six columns with stories about Mother Nature's pushback against man's attempt to control her.
The Oklahoman stepped out once again today – what will they come up with next?
The Virginian-Pilot, America's wellspring of creativity, displayed the gun control story in an entirely new way. You've really got to hand it to the folks in Norfolk.
Link's subhead summed up what we've been saying for months: "Who wants serious news on Monday?" Unfortunately, serious news was unavoidable today, but Link's point is well taken.
The newspaper with the best front design today is The Kansas City Star for a dramatic, yet unpredictable, presentation of a breaking news story.
Any other paper would have used a six-column headline and a six-column photo. But KC mananged to achieve just as much impact without resorting to the typical presentation. Its WOB (white-on-black) headline may have seemed "tabloid-like" in another paper, but seems perfectly fine on this page and provides more impact than black on white. The photo wasn't particurlar strong, so the headline had to carry more of the weight for this package, and is more likely to drive single-copy sales
BFD FAQs Send an email direct to Brass Tacks Design. Click to see all the BFDs in the archives. A selection appears below.
2007 WORKSHOPS
API: New products NAA: Marketing
Wyoming Press Kentucky Press Minnesota Press New England Press NAA: Single-copy Inland: Classified New York Press API: Advertising
WCAA CLASSIFIED NEWSPAPER DESIGN
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
The ISJ shows its passion for Pocatello by filling its fronts with faces – featuring five or more per front per day. You can't be too local and you can't run too many faces of local people, because everyone loves to hear these words: "I saw your picture in the paper." See the pages.
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.
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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