Flexibility

At The BG News, stories are turned in by 4 p.m., copy editors arrive at 5:30 p.m. and designers arrive at 6 p.m. Once designers arrive, they have until 10 p.m. to get their pages laid out. You might think this is plenty of time, but more than once I have had to pull the plug on a design idea at 8, 9, even 9:30 p.m. (That last one was a bad night. The designer had come up with a clever, optical illusion centerpiece involving a bowling pin. It wouldn’t have worked for two reasons. 1. It didn’t really have much to do with the story. 2. The optical illusion would have failed because both the fold and the gray newspages would have ruined the effect. I told her we couldn’t do that. She didn’t speak to me for the rest of the night. We’re still friends.)

Just like reporters always have to be aware of how their stories could change, designers have to be aware of when their idea just isn't working. Or when something else happens. Sometimes, breaking news happens and the centerpiece or lead news story could change entirely. Working at a newspaper demands a flexibility from everyone — flexibility of hours, schedules and whatever project they're working on. You have to know when your idea is going south so you can scrap it and throw together something at least mediocre to turn in by deadline. Because, you know what? The paper has to be published. No matter what.

A History of News Design, Part 2

A history of news design is, essentially, a history of news. For important, historic events, it has often been said that newspapers are the first rough draft of history.

Design is how that rough draft is presented to the world. Check out these newspapers and see how they present/preserve one historic event.

A History of News Design, part 1

In the beginning, there was news, but there wasn't design. At least not much.

Back when concerned citizens first started newspapers, the idea was to get information out, not to make it look good. Since newspapers was the primary source of information, editors took for granted that citizens would read it. The front page didn't have to be eye-catching.

This front page is from 1964. A lot of people probably read it back then, when no other news source was available, but if The BG News tried to pull a design like this today, not many would read it.

That's a lot of text, and it doesn't flow well. Nearly every story is L-shaped, and L-shapes are tough for readers' eyes to follow. Also, there are about nine stories on the front. Today, most newspapers get away with three or four longer stories because big photos, big headlines, big design takes up space.

Actually, most of the tricks newspapers use today to get readers' attentions are not present: Big photos, punchy headlines, even bylines are absent.

But many of these differences come from how the paper was put together. Not many photos were used because it was so much more difficult back then to apply photos to the giant sheets of metal they sent to the printer (again, more about process later).

Design didn't actually start to change until the rise of the computer. The creative, design-heavy front pages seen today weren't possible without programs like InDesign and PhotoShop.

A History of News Design, part 2 coming soon

Embrace Design

Welcome to "Til Death Do Us Part" — where two newspaper junkies will revel in all the greatness newspaper design has to offer.

We realize newspapers are supposedly on the decline. The economy's rough; the Internet is becoming the go-to for breaking headlines. And maybe we shouldn't have put so much stock in the advertising business model.

But print journalism is not dead. As newspapers continue to circulate, their page designs will become even more crucial to drawing readers away from their glowing screens and back to the reliable newsprint broadsheets.

In fact, the Internet makes news design more accessible, more necessary and easier to share. The front page design of most newspapers worldwide is a few clicks away. But you already know this.

We are here to show you a few things you may not know about news design. Maybe you will even learn to love it as much as we do. Or at least appreciate it for the time-consuming, calculating creative process it is.

So stayed tuned for an archive of news design — the best, the worst, the artists behind the graphics and why it all matters.

In the meantime, take a second to pick up your morning edition and see what its design team slaved over the night before. Go ahead. Tear it apart. After all, design is all about the reader.