Tacoma goes retro with Sunday A1
Readers in Tacoma, Washington must have felt like they were in some kind of funky time warp Sunday.
They woke up to find an extremely retro-looking News Tribune lying in their front yards. And in black and white, yet!
News Tribune executive editor Dave Zeeck explained all in a column that ran inside:
Today’s Page 1 is old-school in the extreme.
It’s the brainchild of David Montesino, our assistant managing editor for visuals. He supervises the people who produce the photographs, art and graphics for the paper and the Web site, and those who design the presentation of both.
We celebrate our 125th anniversary today because it’s the Sunday closest to April 7, the date when the Tacoma Daily Ledger, our oldest predecessor, first published in 1883. Our next oldest newspaper ancestor, the Tacoma Daily News, printed its first copy on Sept. 25 of the same year. The Tribune came along in the early part of the 20th century and bought both, creating The Tacoma News Tribune and the Sunday Ledger (the Ledger died in the 1930s).
David thought about designing today’s front page to mimic those earliest papers. Trust me, none of us would have liked that. They were devoid of photos and were mainly a full broadsheet of newsprint covered with small type.
But when today’s centerpiece story came into focus, David knew what style he wanted for the front page.
“Because the Daffodil Festival is celebrating its 75th anniversary, we thought it would be great to go back to 1934, its first year, for our front page,†he said.
So David went back to that year and borrowed the look and typography of that era. He and front-page designer Carmen Dybdahl executed the front with today’s news.
Very nicely done. Readers love being surprised.
A few examples of David’s non-retro A1 design work:
See more in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio.
Want a closer look at that Sunday front? Tickle the thumbnail:
