As some of you know, I teach newspaper design in a college along with my consulting and writing about newspaper design. The last few classes have finally led me to the conclusion that most young journalists would not recognize good design if it slapped them in the face.
Granted, the vast majority of my students want to be Pulitzer Prize winning writers for a major metropolitan daily — right out of college — not editors or designers. I appreciate their lofty goals, believe me, although I am forced to also recognize their inability to meet deadlines, correct blatant style errors or use a comma in even a vaguely appropriate way. But that’s another post.
What astounds me, after many weeks of discussions, examples, exercises and crit sessions, is that they continue to prefer the bad over the good in their own critiques of professional pages and in their own work.
(Let me interject here that I realize “bad” and “good” are largely subjective evaluations — as I discussed in an article a few years ago. But one should be able to separate the technically competent from the not. My students during the past few years increasingly cannot.)
For example, for the past two semesters, I have been harping on how they must have a margin inside a boxed story and that you can’t bleed type. The illustration on the left shows no margin and the type smack up against the one-point line, the one on the right shows a margin.
My students can’t figure this out. They continue to copy the example on the left, exercise after exercise, not the proper one. It is as if they can’t “see” what I am talking about. This is just one small example of what I have observed. I recently had them do a critique of some front pages of Texas newspapers. They found the clean and professional Dallas Morning News “boring.” They found a gaudy and over-colorized front (I think it was the Brownsville paper) to be well-designed. To my eye, the design was weak, the typography shoddy, the color use awful.
Again, my tastes are not the last word on newspaper design. But I am amazed that after two semesters, my students still cannot “see” the most obvious design/technical flaws.
I think this spells trouble for the future of newspaper design. The cohort of potential readers we would most like to capture as readers either doesn’t care about design or is immune to its effects, at least based on my experience. If journalism majors cannot understand and see the basic tenets of design at work, how can we expect average readers to do so?
I need to think about this some more and do some more valid research. But it does cause me great concern for the future not only of newspaper design, but of newspapers in general.
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments.
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Owner, News Design School
Yes, it might spell trouble, but might it mean something slightly less nefarious — perhaps a paradigm shift?
It stands to reason that people will design based on what they enjoy looking at, and that what people enjoy looking at is what should be designed. That seems self-correcting.
I honestly thought minimalism was the way everything was going. Fashion and design in almost all aspects have demonstrated that. But maybe college students are on the pulse of the latest trend.
Or yes, maybe newspaper design is doomed.
If it’s a paradigm shift, then I want my $.20 back! Your self-correcting comment is spot on. And maybe design is simply subject to entropy. Thanks for the comment.
Perhaps it’s the lack of attention these students have previously invested in perusing quality design examples. Also, everything you taught me (a decade ago) made sense from a logical standpoint and I didn’t interpret it as a matter of taste: the need for white space, the purpose of various font sizes, why serif vs. sans, where to put certain sizes & shapes of photos & why, etc. I spent my years leading up to college reading high-quality, well-designed print publications (and also browsed many lesser quality publications). Therefore if my first statement is true, my second statement wouldn’t necessarily apply to your current students because they would have an underdeveloped sense of appreciation that allows them to understand and apply such reasoning. Let’s hope it passes!!
Suzanne: Thanks and good points. I can almost lay all this at the feet of social media as a time suck, as a cognitive skill thief, and as a — generally — bad example. I also hope it passes, but it is too late for me as a teacher!
Maybe it’s me, but the Dallas Morning News has awful typography, a mediocre sense of dominance, and a mixed sense of column use. At least on their front page. I mean really, they six columns on that thin a newspaper? You barely get 4 words per line. And hard justification with low hyphenation means the word spacing is atrocious.
Why not show them some interesting designs that are both contemporary and well designed. Up here we have the Globe and Mail (which kicked ass at the SND awards this year) and the National Post has a more conservative design. I like the Bakersfield for a tab down there, and there is a Kansas school paper that is pretty too. What about showing them some magazine design, Esquire is amazing (especially considering their shoddy content).
Hi Geoff: Thanks for the excellent comment. I agree that the DMN is not God’s gift to newspaper design, and I certainly agree that six columns makes for an iffy H&J, but the purpose of the exercise was not to expose them to great typography and design (which I have done before), but to see if they could recognize technical problems, such as the narrow line measure and lack of photo dominance you mention. The DMN was simply a simple design, with plenty of white space, minimal but useful color and so on. I had them compare that work to two decidedly homely papers, with even worse body type, muddled layouts and weak grid spacing. They couldn’t pick out the problems, despite many hours of guidance from me.
I do like the Globe and Mail and the National Post (even with a vertical nameplate!). I need to go outside the U.S. more than I do. Thanks again for the excellent tips.
As a mature student in career transition who is trying to more readily grasp design basics for print news, it would be helpful to see or read about empirical evidence where common design errors touch the bottom line. This way I understand the rule but also understand why it is a rule. Entropy or paradigm shift, I presume readers are the ultimate judges of what works and what does not. Of course, I acknowledge in some areas there is not sufficient competition in print news to drive better design so the internet may become competition by default. Could this be root cause for your perception of increasingly bad design? Is it valid for students to compare print design standards with web media standards?
Thanks for the comment Johnny. The research in newspaper design is a little light, compared to research in other areas. I think it’s because there are few set standards of design: good design is too much in the eye of the beholder.
I believe the increased bad design is because the corporate Mother Ship for many newspapers realizes good design doesn’t sell more papers, so why invest in it? It is rather like editing, which also has gotten worse industry-wide in recent years. And in truth, I don’t think readers care that much for good design, so maybe it doesn’t really matter. They just want their “news” cheap and easy to read.
No, I don’t think students would gain from a comparison of print and web design. The standards of typography and white space and such are true no matter where they are applied. But in terms of layout, there’s not much to compare.
Have you looked at Williams’ The Non-Designer’s Design Handbook? Good basics.
I disagree Bob. I think good design does sell papers in the same way good design sells magazines.
Again, I come from Canada. If you walk up to a newsstand you’ll see five or six papers. Your local Black Press, your regional Post Media Newsgroup (or two, or three, We’ve got the Province and The Vancouver Sun), The National Post and the Globe and Mail.
Well, You might see a National Post and Globe and Mail. They usually sell out the fastest. And while they are the two national papers, they’re also the two prettiest. Both have established designers and structure, they’re great to look at, but the Globe and Mail is the one that blows you away. Glossy white paper, big photos above the fold. It’s the paper that’s gone the fastest, since their redesign they’ve seen circulation increase 5-10% (The National Post is on the downturn.
I think design matters, but it’s not tangible. It’s about what readers notice on the page, what they pick up on. If you can explain “entry points”, you can turn it into “pickup”, which can translate into “money.” We all know the Corporate Mothership cares about that stuff.
On learning print/web, there are big differeneces. You can’t typeset nearly as tight on web, hyphenating hurts you even more, it’s a different animal. Learn both though, both can influence the other in a positive way.
Hey Geoff: Good points. I think what I am struggling with is that I think most people don’t understand and appreciate good design — and I am including journalists and publishers in this group. I also believe that overall and in most cases, design still doesn’t sell papers, or perhaps enough MORE papers to justify the spending that good newspaper design requires. The Globe and Mail may be an exception. But we cannot separate the variables of the glossy paper from the design from the reputation of the newspaper, and so on. So we really don’t know which is causing the effect.
And I still don’t think good design alone sells magazines of newspapers. If it did, we would treat them more like coffee table pieces with an extended shelf life. I toss my paper into the recycle pile the day of publication; magazines last a bit longer. That is, unless the content needs saving and filing away or clipping and mailing.
Even though design may be queen, content is still king.