From the handful of newspapers who still cut up stories with Exacto knives, wax the paper and lay the page out on a board by hand, to those papers whipping pages out on nimble computer programs (such as Quark, Adobe PageMaker, Harris or Unisys), the page designer still needs to know the basic elements of making a page look its sharpest. Editors also need to know the basics to help guide the publication's image.
First, bear in mind that a newspaper page is composed of six vertical columns; column width may be varied by, say, laying down three columns of text over a four-column space. Color is usually available to designers on only select pages of the paper, like the front and back covers and pages that come out on the press along with a paid color advertisement. Story length is measured in column inches; one column on a newspaper page is 21 inches long on a broadsheet (examples: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal). A tabloid, on the other hand, is like a large magazine and has fewer available columns per page for designers to work with (examples: The New York Post, The New York Daily News).
Before reading these steps, grab a copy of the newspaper and look at the front page. See if you can determine the page designer's intentions in putting together the page.
Consider your audience
A community newspaper has readers who care about the latest school awards, city council meetings and residential burglary, thus plays these local-interest pieces and photos prominently. A major metropolitan newspaper has readers who also want to see important nation/world stories out front. A newspaper with a lot of senior readers should take care to use design elements that make the story easy to follow. A newspaper that is wooing younger readers may use flashier design with interactive elements offered online. Compare the appearance and respective audiences of The Wall Street Journal and USA Today: Businessmen wanting no-frills facts cozy up to the traditional-looking, grayer WSJ; travelers and readers on the run get eye-catching color, graphics that pop and tons of news briefs in USA Today. The papers' designs fit the desires and habits of their audiences.
Consider your elements
You have stories, sidebars, photos, cutlines, headlines and other various options such as refers to other parts of the paper or online content, or pullquotes to highlight key statements by story subjects. You'll have to create an engaging page that draws in the reader without crossing the line into a page that's too cluttered to be attractive to the eye. Sure, the easy thing is to just slap some text and a headline on a page, but even on pages with space restricted by large ads you can work in mugshots and small breakout boxes to add some interest to the page. Use your elements to the reader's advantage.
What goes where?
Think of the page design as telling a story about the stories. This is the most important story -- therefore, it's the lede. This is an earth-shattering story -- six-column heavy hed lede. This is the best story we have to offer, but it's still kind of a slow news day -- sidesaddle lede with a soft-strip offlede across the top of the page. This is a good read with photos that help tell the story and perhaps a feature angle -- the centerpiece. This rounds out the page with an important (but maybe not the most exciting) story -- downpage. This is information that we can tell you in just a few paragraphs per story, perhaps a roundup of what's going on around the city or world -- a briefs column.
Layout pitfalls
Some things to avoid when designing a page:
- Doglegging. Say you have three columns of text, a three-column headline, and a two-column photo to box into a modular package. Run one full column of text starting under the headline and continue two columns of text under the photo (which would be directly under the headline). Pushing the photo down instead and continuing legs of text over the photo would be doglegging. Don't do it.
- Butting headlines. Avoid running headline text from two different stories on the same parallel. If unavoidable, this can be remedied by placing a fine rule between the stories (a design element favored by some publications regardless).
- Downsizing photos. Shrinking photos to fit in an alloted space is fine -- unless the elements within the photo become so tiny that your average reader won't be able to distinguish what's going on.
- Remember the dollar-bill rule. Gray space is bad. Learn more.
- Pages that lack modularity. Can you picture your story packages on the completed page as invisible boxes? Aim for modular layouts.
- Top-heavy headlines. Is the first deck of the headline noticeably lopsided with a few more characters than the next deck? If it's impossible to even the decks out, better to have more characters on the second deck. And though this is more of a concern for copy editors, don't end the first deck of a headline in a preposition, either.