| I have no idea why typography and layout in newspapers have been so important to me. Maybe because I was copy editor and then managing editor of our college newspaper in an engineering school. Engineers should probably be barred from newspaper offices to protect everyone's sanity. I also have to admit that I'm disturbed every time my wife changes her hairstyle even though it looks really great in a couple of days. Having said that, I have some comments which I hope will be useful. They sound critical because that's where I need to start (I never get to say much about my wife's hairstyles). The S-B used to have a proper newspaper layout but is venturing into new territory. It's not going to be a web page (and anyway, web pages don't look like this). It will have to remain a newspaper. Digging in to the new design and Ian's comments this morning: I'm not troubled by the use of different typefaces for headlines--yet. It's common to have some variety. Things will settle down. Unless the layout confounds the editors. Contrast this with the Advertiser's makeover in the middle of 2004. They settled on Poynter Old Style for body type. This is a modern design created by or for the Poynter Institute, and has also been used effectively by the St. Petersburg Times, for example. But the Advertiser overuses the same typeface for headlines. There are better choices. The St. Petersburg Times uses a variety of typefaces for headlines. If one reads the Advertiser every day, one gets used to an unusually bland use of typefaces. Back to the Star-Bulletin. What Ian may be reacting to may be a distracting use of layout rather than typography. Given today's front page, it would be hard to make an esthetic choice of faces. In other words, when some common conventions are broken, no choice of typeface will make the reader comfortable. I scrawled some comments onto the image from Sunday using my tablet PC, see the pic below. Today's front page is not substantially different. Tomorrow will have the challenge of what to put into the box at the top right, should the same layout be used. |
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