Newspapering
design is the process of arranging materials on a newspaper page, according to
editorial and graphical guidelines and goals. Main editorial goals include: the
ordering of news stories by of order of importance while graphical
considerations include: readability and balanced, unobtrusive incorporation of
advertising. The era of modern newspapers began in the mid-nineteenth century,
with the industrial revolution, and increased capacities for printing and distribution.
Over time, improvements in printing technology, graphical design and editorial
standards have led to changes and improvements in the look and readability of
newspapers.
Nineteenth-century
newspapers were often densely packed with type, often arranged vertically, with
multiple headlines for each article. A number of the same technology
limitations resisted until the advent of digital typesetting and pagination in
late with century. “USA today” was a leader in design changes, and was largely
responsible for adding tools such as colour and into graphics to newspapers
design vocabulary. These changes are partly intended to help readers “navigate”
to scan and see priorities some of these changes included:
·
Fewer articles
per page.
·
Modules or squaring
off of articles and packages of related materials. Modules avoid what is known
as “doglegs” or inverted –“L” shapes.
·
More standardized
column widths.
·
More standardize
typefaces. More “art”- non text elements, usually photos but often including
advertising or outline (or shaded) boxes for featured stories. More white space
known as “air. An area with too with white space is called “tight, and too much
white space is called “loose”.
·
Colour.
PROCESSES
Designers
typically use desktop publishing software to arrange the elements on the pages
directly. In the past, before digital prepress pagination, designers used
precise “Lay Out Dummies” to direct
the exact layout of elements for each page. A complete layout dummy was
required for designating proper column widths by which a typesetter would set type, and arrange columns of text. Layout also
required the calculation of lengths of copy (text in column inches”) for any
chosen width. Much of the variance and incoherence of early newspapers was due
to the fact that last minute corrections were exclusively handled by
typesetters. With photographic printing process, typesetting gave way to
paste-up, whereby columns of type were printed by machines (Phototypesetters) on high resolution
film for paste-up on photographed final prints. These prints in turn were “shot
to steel emulsion photographic plates.
Though
paste-up put an end to cumbersome typesetting, this still required planned
layouts and set column widths. Photographic plates are (still) wrapped on printing drums to directly apply ink to new
sprint (paper). In the mid 1990s,
the paste-up process gave way to the direct to plate process, where computer
paginated files were optically transmitted directly to the photographic plate.
Replacing several in-between steps in newspaper production, direct to plate
pagination allowed for much more flexibility and precision than before.
Designers today still used column grid layouts only with layout softwares,
Quark express, Microsoft publisher, and Adobe in design are the most popular
and professional but there are free alternatives such as scribus and even word
processors such as open office organization writer.
THE ELEMENTS OF DESIGN
1.
BALANCE: The
designer makes very sure that pictures are well weighed, and placed on the
either side of the newspaper page.
2.
CONTRAST: It
can be achieved by using different colours and typefaces.
3.
PROPORTION: The
designer attempts to also achieve proportion. This is compared between size of
picture, layout and shapes of news stories.
4.
RHYTHM: The
designer here makes sure that he measures his tempo very well.
5.
UNITY: The
unification of every thing on the newspaper page is very important.
6.
HARMONY: The
designer makes sure that pictures, paragraphs, and sentences are well placed in
such a manner that will attract attention.
SOME STEPS
IN NEWSPAPERING DESIGN
1.
Organization:
arrange and organize your contents very well.
2. Consider your ‘art”
3. Know and use grid carefully-5 columns, 6 columns can
be useful for running information boxes, mug shorts etc.
4. Keep the
design on the grid. For instance, on
a 6 column gird, run a story over 3 columns and another story over two and a
story over one.
5. Create a
dominant headline. Consider 60pt,
even 70pt, but probably no less than 52pt for the most important story. The
hierarchy of story headlines should be at least 6pt difference. If the biggest
story is 52pt, the next highest should be 48, 42, 36 and so on. Some consider a
10pt or 8pt size difference to be preferable.
6. Back to the photos, dominant vs secondary. What photo
advances the story the best? Look for emotion, dynamics and movement, unusual
angels and intense or intimate movements. Then play them big for columns wide
on a 6 column grid.
7. If you have multiple photos, the second photo should
not be greater than half the size of the dominant.
8. Add layering .
9. Have someone like the copy editor look at so as to
proof the headlines, layers, body copy and correct errors.
10.
Then send the
page to the press.
DESIGN OPTIONS
Designers
choose photo sizes and headline sizes (both the size of the letters and how
much space the headline will take). They may decide what articles will go on
which pages and where on the page alone or in consultation with editors. They
may choose typefaces for special pages, but newspapers usually heave a design
style that determines most routine uses. Edmund Arnold is a notable newspaper designer
and is widely credited as the father of modern newspaper design.
REFERENCE
Harrower,
Tim the newspaper designer’s handbook
Online, Design and effective newspaper or
newsletter