In this iteration of What Works, What Doesn’t, we are going to look at two Indiana papers:
The Elkhart Truth and the Wabash Plain Dealer.
Elkhart Truth
Wabash Plain Dealer
The Truth — great name! — has a handsome flag that is somewhat ruined by busy teasers that don’t add a thing to the page. The teasers, by the way, need more type contrast. Blue is such a quiet color that the type needs to be larger/bolder to make it work. I think there needs to be a line beneath the flag, too.
Speaking of lines, we have another example of the proliferation: the lines on the page are
simply not needed! Remember: if you can remove it from the page and it makes no difference in reader understanding of the content: delete it.
Finally, speaking of typography, the list (good idea!) at the end of the spelling bee story
needs more type contrast and the last line needs to be indented, as it is not a school
listing, but the continuation of a line. Good typography demands attention to such small
details.
The Plain Dealer is another example of the continuing move to a narrower web with its five-column grid. The flag is interrupted by the clock-tower photo, which to me at first glance looked like a duck (the clocks are its eyes, the beak right below it, etc.). Only when I zoomed in did it look like a clock tower.
The head faces are weak choices as well, with the high contrast sans serif against the no-contrast roman face, which is set too loose. The “King” headline is a good example of the lack of contrast, with the byline being the weightiest element.
The bottom two stories have heads that are much too small, and the “Local students” head is set with linespacing so tight that the apostrophe on one line actually touches the loop of the “g” above.
The below-the-flag tease doesn’t work for me either: it’s virtually invisible. The bottom of
the page is extremely gray, and they could have done more with the Inside box. Lots of missed opportunities.
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