Charles Apple

Today, the Columbus Dispatch launched a new section that will insert each Saturday during football season.

It’s called Gameday+ and it’s sure to be a hit in the hometown of the famed Ohio State Buckeyes. After all, the Buckeyes aren’t expected to such this year.  Or so I hear.

Saturday’s live Gameday+ front
—

Scott Minister, Art Director of the Columbus Dispatch, took a few minutes Friday to tell us about Gameday+:

This all started a few months back when our editor, Ben Marrison, had the idea of taking our 4-page A1 wrap that we did last year for all Ohio State’s games and developing it into a larger, more comprehensive section for the 2008 season.

His feeling was that this was our franchise and that it was an opportunity for us to put our best foot forward and capitalize on the strong appetite for Ohio State football. The thinking was that a visually compelling and strong, content-driven product would appeal to readers as well as advertisers.

Assistant Art Director Todd Bayha and I had numerous meetings/discussions with Sports editor Ray Stein and narrowed down our content and refined our ideas. We all agreed that this section needed to be visually dynamic and reflect the intensity and excitement of the Ohio State fan base.

After much discussion, Todd started working on pages and eventually produced a 20-page prototype, complete with ads that had recently run in the paper. The prototype had a 50% ratio of ads to editorial content, per Ben’s request, and we had it printed in order to show our executives what it would look and feel like.

Pages from Saturday’s inaugural edition. Gameday+ is supposed to serve as a game program for those inclined to save a few bucks. So you’ll find several features oriented to today’s game with, uh, Youngstown State.

Here is Saturday’s center spread, pages 14 and 15, containing the cover story profile of a Buckeye player:

Scott continues:

The prototypes were extremely well received. There seemed to be genuine enthusiasm with all parties, even to the point of increasing the size to a 28-pager. The goal of the section was to make Gameday+ the definitive source for Ohio State football.

Included in the section are additional feature stories, Big Ten and national previews, analysis and recruiting updates. Something for everyone.

A story about the nation’s best college quarterbacks:

A roundup page of news about other Big Ten conference schools:

This page rounds up other games being played Saturday, including the one that will be on the flatscreen over my desk: Clemson vs. Alabama at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta:

Todd continues:

Since it publishes on Saturday, fans can take it to the game with them. With this in mind, Todd and I wanted a design that is contemporary, distinct and easy to follow. The Eurostyle font is a good selection for us and will serve us well from a branding standpoint. We have some strong studio portraits and action shots we plan to utilize for the cover.  It’s a considerable amount of work, but it’s been a fun project and something that we’ve really invested ourselves in.

The other item of note is that we also produced a web site that mirrors the content and visual language of the tab. It’s a distinct upgrade and departure from our current look and has been well received by our staffers. We’ll have to see how much interest it generates with the public.

This was Todd’s first foray into web design and the results are certainly encouraging. He took complete ownership of the process and spent considerable time building everything from player profile cards to recruiting features. Again, the design is robust and arresting, but well thought out and easy to navigate. We also got terrific support and tireless effort from web producer Jeremy Lynch, who worked closely with Todd throughout the process.

Again, find that web site here.

Very cool content; very smartly delivered. Just what I’d hope for from the talented folks in Columbus, truly some of the nation’s top sports designers.

Thanks very much, Scott, for giving us a preview.

Scott also put together some very cool football preview covers this year. On the left is his high school cover; on the right, his OSU cover.

 

Find more samples of Scott’s work in his NewsPageDesigner gallery. Ditto for Todd Bayha.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 30th, 2008 at 1:11 am and is filed under Innovative ideas, News design, Newspapers, Sports design, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.