Newspaper Design

Newspaper design is a relatively new term that incorporated many of the activities of other terms
such as Newspaper makeup and Layout but with more artistic and creative judgments about
arranging the contents of a Newspaper. The most important role of newspaper design is its
creative art which give the layout editor several possibilities of varying his newspaper design to
give it an entirely different outlook from other newspapers.
Basically, newspaper designers judge the value of a designed spread by looking at it themselves
and imagining how readers could perceive it or sense what it feels like. Actual feedback
on readers’ perception of the design is very scarce.
Simply put, to design a newspaper is to outline or draw a plan on how materials- stories,
headlines, pictures, captions, illustrations and advertisements on a page will be arranged or
organized. Its main aim is to present those materials in the most attractive way so as to help
move the readers easily and efficiently through the pages.
DEVELOPMENT OF DESIGN
There are many factors that propel the development of design, but the most prominent ones are:
1. Technological Innovations
This has to do with the development in science and technology that world witness over the last
hundred years which change people’s taste and styles. Software such as Adobe PageMaker,
CorelDraw, Microsoft picture editor etc had revolutionized the entire newspaper/magazine
production process.
2. Societal factors
Newspaper design had undergone lots of changes due to reasons of War/Conflicts, Mass Culture,
consumerism and other societal happenings. These push the newspaper editors to design their
papers so as to attract more readers.
3. The Growth of Advertising: Advertisers, who directly or indirectly, control to some extent,
the content of the newspaper compelled the editors to spend their time and resources in
improving the design of their papers to attract and hold the attention of not only the readers, but
practically the advertisers and this greatly shaped the development of newspaper design.
4. Sensational Journalism: In response to some of the challenges posed by the visual media,
newspapers over dramatizing news values to retain their audiences/readers. These news values
are numbered more than 20, but we will list only 10.
a. Proximity,
b. Prominence
c. Timeliness
d. Impact
e. Conflict
f. Human interest
g. Conflict
h. Suspense
i. Mystery
 j. Magnitude

PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
Understanding these principles of design is critical in being able to present news and features in
an attractive way. These principles are:
Balance:
This is a means of achieving equilibrium. A page should not be overwhelmingly heavy in one
section and extremely light in another. Ex. Placing a Larger Bold headline at the top while
placing a light headline at the bottom. Those elements that need balancing include pictures and
headlines. The idea is to avoid much gravitating of the reader’s eyes towards the heavy section.
In effect, if a big picture or headline is placed at the top, a similar picture not necessarily the
same in all respect, must be placed at the bottom to achieve visual balance.
The center of a page is considered as the focal point while the top and the bottom of the page are
the areas where balance must be established. Balance is most often done between top and bottom
rather than side by side.
Page balance may be formal or informal. Formal balance is achieved by placing
headlines/pictures of the same size on either side of the page. It is sometimes called symmetrical
balance because; one side of the page tends to mirror the other. The informal balance on the
other hand is the top and bottom balance which most newspapers employed.
Contrast
This is the principle of using at least two or more elements on a page, each of which is
grammatically different from the other. Ex. Matching 2 different pictures or headlines. Contrast
is a means of preventing artistic elements from becoming dull. Some elements that need to
contrasted are:
 Roman Headline with an italic
 Light body type with bold body type
 Vertical make up with a horizontal make up
From the above therefore, we can safely say that contrast may be achieved in four general ways:
shape, size, weight and direction
 Shape contrast may consist of a story set flush on both sides in opposition to another
story set flush left. Or an outline picture may be used with a rectangular picture.
 Size contrast may achieved by using large illustrations with smaller ones on the same
page, or large type with smaller type.
 Weight contrast may employ a picture that appears very black with a lighter picture, or a
story set in boldface type contrasted with another one set in lighter typefaces.
 Direction contrast could show vertically shaped stories contrasted with a horizontally
shaped stories on the same page.
These contrasts are but a few contrast alternatives of the many that are possible on any given
page. An objective of designing a page is to achieve a pleasant contrast.
Unity
This is a harmonious relationship among various elements (Text or Illustrations) in a printed copy. A
page that does not have unity will appear as mere a collection of stories, each competing for
attention.
Lack of unity often results when stories are laid from the top of the page downward. The layout
editor is building a page piece by piece and therefore cannot be sure how each story will contribute
to the overall page design until the layout is complete. At that point, the layout editor may find that
there is no enough time to shift stories around to achieve unity. The result is that, readers may find it
difficult to concentrate on any one section of the page because of too many centers of interest. A
unified page on the other hand, appears as if everything is in its correct position and the page is
therefore interesting.
An editor plans for a unified page by keeping the design of the entire page in mind at all times while
working on any part of it. Each story therefore must be visually weighed against all other stories in
terms of probable appearance of the entire page. The editor may have to shift some stories around on
a dummy until satisfactory arrangements have been found.
Proportion
This has to do with the shapes and sizes of each element in relation to other elements on a page. Ex.
The length or shape of a story determines its relationship with other stories. Lead story on a page has
a very bold-large headline than the rest. The length of a story may be compared with its breadth and
the width of a photograph may be compared with its depth.
What the designer must know is that, unequal proportions are usually more attractive than equal
proportion. Thus, rectangular shaped stories, pictures, illustrations, etc are often considered
graphically more attractive than the square ones.