The front page: A place to innovate and surprise

For the first dozen years of my professional career, design and layout were part of my job, first with smaller dailies and weeklies in New England, then with major metros in Rochester, NY, and St. Petersburg, FL.

Before receiving some formal training, I used my skills acquired at the famous Trial-and-Error University, an internationally renowned source of knowledge and inspiration for many of us coming through the ranks in the 1970s and 1980s.

Shows the visual excitement and vitality of this Toronto daily. Designers use free-form teasers as content, not just promotion. Often cited as one of the best-designed newspapers in the world.

My lesson in front-page design consisted of the following:

Put large photos at the top and the bottom of the page, make sure headlines don't bump and try to have a lead story! And don't miss deadline.

This worked for a while. My pages were functional, and no readers called to complain that I failed to create a center of visual impact or that my headline hierarchy was a bit shaky.

They did call when the newspaper misspelled their son's name in the basketball box scores and when we neglected to report that the police chief's wife was caught going 90 mph in a 35 mph zone. True story, actually.

The front page has come a long way, and today it has become a canvas for some of the most creative design in the history of newspapers.

What to do when a major golf tournament is in your city -- and you're going through a power blackout. The Rochester daily was able to produce compelling packages that complemented each other.

You have to thank Sept.11, 2001 for some of that. In reporting the story of our lifetime, designers all around the world tried new things, played photos and graphics large and well, and modulated their respective looks to match the enormity of the story.

Collectively, newspapers edged out on the limb, tried some new approaches – and succeeded. It was innovation through risk-taking.

So, what is the state of the front page today? Where are we headed?

Matt Mansfield, deputy managing editor of the San Jose Mercury News, says that his staff's goals change constantly when it comes to the front page. That's because readership evolves.

"We look to make the front page lively and more reflective of our diverse readership. However, we know who we are and what we are supposed to do every day, at least in that macro sense. "

He added, "Newspaper front pages are different than they were 20 years ago -- by design. In an increasingly visual media culture, front pages have had to change, give way to non-traditional ways of telling stories. Even The New York Times is now putting popular culture stories on its front page and playing color photography more dramatically. "

David Boardman, the managing editor of the Seattle Times, believes the most effective front pages achieve numerous objectives.

This picture -- the cover of the Hyannis newspaper on September 11, 2002, does say more than a thousand words. This was a homage to the thousands of victims of the terrorist attacks. Cape Cod is a mid-sized newspaper with a circulation of 53,014.

"Good front pages are both windows into and mirrors of their communities. They have a strong sense of both time and place, and distinct personalities. More than anything, the front page is the window to the personality, to the brains and to the heart of a newspaper. "

Many newspapers with tabloid formats and those outside the United States have different goals. Some publications focus on teasing inside content with larger refers – and sometimes feature few or no stories at all.

"For the New York City edition of Newsday, " says news editor John Mancini, "our goal is to create an engaging page, to make noise on a very crowded newsstand. The tabloid form forces us to select one or two stories to project -- not always the most important story of the day, but certainly, we hope, the most interesting and useful to our readers. We strive to reflect the whole of the city in both story selection and images. "

Let's go to the other coast for the counterpoint.

At San Diego's Union-Tribune, news editor Lora Cicalo found that after Sept. 11, readers wanted more in-depth hard-news stories that provided context and meaning. "Our front-page readership -- and the amount of time spent with the front page -- has steadily increased over the past four years. It is, by far, the best-read thing in the newspaper. "

This newspaper based in southern Georgia showed on September 12, 2001, that you don't need a large staff to produce exciting, dramatic design. Circulation is only 6,962.

Important words, yes, but today's front pages also are the "best-viewed " part of the newspaper as well.

David Fowler, a designer, ad specialist and trainer based in Cardiff by the Sea, CA, once told a Society for News Design audience that all journalists should care about design because in an age where newspapers are riddled by visual competition "we are in a vicious fistfight for people's eyeballs. "

Theresa Badovich, the managing editor for visuals at The Times of Northwest Indiana, punctuated that point in a presentation before the Associated Press Managing Editors convention in mid-October. She encouraged editors to look for visual opportunities to attract new readers.

And if you overdo it? Well, there's always tomorrow!

"If [you print a mistake], you still have 364 more days to get it right, " she told the APME group.

Warren Watson is vice president for operations at the American Press Institute, and develops training in newsroom topics, design and management. His son, Jamie, 19, is a first-year student studying painting, drawing and graphic design at the Rhode Island School of Design. His dad has taken drawing classes – unsuccessfully – and is still trying to learn how to draw a decent stick figure!