Let’s take a look at last Saturday’s The Frederick (MD) News-Post, an example of what
can go wrong with an otherwise good design. I hate to pick on somebody, but this week, there’s just no room for a “What Works.”
Obviously, we have to talk about color. First is the huge tease to… Tomorrow’s
Coupons! I don’t mind the tease as much as I mind the heavy-handed treatment of the
reverse. The two-tone color treatment for the main head is a bit much as well.
The layout of the top of the page is a bit hard to follow. The large photo of the kids in the snow has a cutline that is off to the side, under the main story! It needs an arrow to help the reader. The two photos look like they go together, but the second photo is a post office story and goes with the story with the little headline beneath the photo.
The first column rail is a bit of a mishmash. The cutline beneath the flag indicates that the governor has ordered the state’s flag at half-staff, but it doesn’t say why.
Then there’s a Good Morning quote, followed by a weather bug without a headline. The rail info also shares a gray background, but with several different shades and spacing.
There’s the blue box with all the purplish bullets in it. Now I suppose someone at the paper thought it would be cool to use the two colors from the headline again to create sort of vertical bookends for the package, but it doesn’t work. It is way too much, the type is hard to read and the color should just be removed.
The Haiti story is not bad, although the logo for the series is played too large and interrupts the head.
Finally, I know that papers have to place ads on A-1 today. That’s fine. But pay attention to the colors so the editorial side color doesn’t clash with it. This is an example of an uncomfortable color combination that could/should be avoided.
As bad as this page is, it would be easy to fix: all the pieces are there for a good page. A better-organized rail, a little more white space, heads with more contrast, and most important, restraint in the use of color would go a long way to making this page work.
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Owner, News Design School