A few Monday Obama inaugural fronts
Lots of papers out there put Barack Obama on their front page today, but only a few struck us as particularly noteworthy.
We thought we’d take a quick spin through some…
Most papers went with shots from Sunday’s giant concert at the Lincoln Memorial. Probably the most iconic is the shot of Obama making his speech with Lincoln looming in the background.
Of all the papers that led with this Associated Press photo, the Chicago Tribune’s Ryan Smith put it to best use:
Some papers used the AP shot of Barack and Michelle Obama waving to the crowd after the concert. The Detroit News gave it a great ride — a vertical photo fills this vertical space quite well.
Design director Rick Epps writes:
As always, it’s a team effort, in this case among three people. 1A designer Antone Amye designed the page, reacting to some breaking news about a local soldier who died in the Iraq war in the first column, yet maintaining the prominence of the Obama package. News Design Director Cindy Jacobs and page designer Tyler Rau have led our inauguration coverage, so they set up the labeling, which cues what’s inside our six-page Obama special section.
“Anything is Possible” was definitely the most popular headline among U.S. newspaper fronts. The quote of the day, without question. And rightfully so.
The Merc’s Mike Mayer went with a small shot of the Obama family tucked into its headline and then blew out that wonderful shot of Bruce Springsteen singing with a gospel choir.
And check out that headline: “Lincoln gets an earful.” Oh, that’s sweet. If The Boss can’t make Abe stand up and dance, no one can.
Only a few papers chose to commemorate Sunday’s event with a shot of the giant crowd. Most that we saw weren’t very effective presentations.
The big exception was today’s USA Today. The designers there wisely chose to duck the Newsline column beneath a wonderful six-column crowd shot by Getty Images:
Nicely done.
A number of papers attempted to bridge today’s MLK holiday with Tuesday’s inauguration with conceptual fronts. The most successful of these was Newsday:
Notice how neither photo — nor the quote — are identified. Notice how you don’t need them.
Very, very nice.
The tiny Advocate — a 33,000-daily in Victoria, Texas, midway between Houston, San Antonio and Corpus Christi — went with this photoshopped portrait montage of Obama and King in order to support its “Pro vs. Con” debate on whether or not Obama’s election means Dr. King’s dream has been fulfilled:
Another paper going with a photoillustration today is the Tribune of Oakland, Calif. Can Obama take the web-heavy approach he used during his campaign and find a way to use that in the White House?
It’s a worthy story, a wonderful illustration and a terrific headline. Our only suggestion: A larger hed and maybe just a bit more white space might have helped sell this story.
Another daring approach to an Obama + King presentation was attempted by the Green Bay Press-Gazette, average daily circulation about 58,000. Unfortunately, we don’t think this one was quite as successful:
Y’know, we’re all in favor of taking chances. Part of what we’re rewarding with these occasional roundup posts is the willingness of designers and editors to take chances.
And sometimes when you gamble, you fail. If there was no chance of failure, it wouldn’t be a chance.
So we applaud the spirit of what Green Bay tried here.
The only “poster front” we saw today was just across the Chesapeake from us: The Daily Press of Newport News not only went with a poster, it also turned its front page — all except for the nameplate — sideways:
Don’t crane your neck. Here’s a sideways — but somewhat smaller — look:
Very interesting and very nicely done. If someone from the Daily Press would let us know who designed it, we’d be grateful.
That’s what we liked in today’s inauguration-related front pages. See our earlier post featuring today’s NFC and AFC championship fronts.
Last night, we posted a selection of Sunday inauguration fronts. Kathy Bogan of the Rocky Mountain News spotted it and wrote:
This is the Rocky front from Saturday. Thought I would send it along since we don’t have a Sunday edition!
Amazing, Kathy! We asked her who designed the page:
Charles Chamberlin and I were the main cooks, with lots of stirring from everyone else. The photos are all the Rocky’s: Javier Manzano for the big image of Obama under the lights and the one of the hat over heart (a Tuskegee Airman); Preston Gannaway for the riders (the Freedom Riders from Greeley); Chris Schneider for the horn player (Windsor High School marching band) – all are headed to DC for the ceremony.
Janet Reeves photo-edited. Chas designed the nameplate variation; I worked the rest.
It was both the front of the paper and a special section – the section wrapped the entire paper, then there was a second more traditional front page inside.
Finally, we’ll close with one page that hasn’t published yet. John Robinson, editor of The News & Record of Greensboro, N.C., today revealed this cover for tomorrow’s special editon:
Yes, we know what you’re thinking. We were thinking the same thing, too: Oh, no, not another one of those photomontages. They’ve become such a cliché over the past couple of decades.
This one has an interesting angle, though. As Robinson writes:
We asked you to send us your photographs so that we could use them as part of a special edition on Inauguration Day.
We were nervous, though, because we needed at least 150 mugshots to create a photographic mosaic in Obama’s image. That’s a lot to ask when people are so busy with more important matters over the Christmas holidays.
Oh we of little faith. You sent us more than 470 photos.
…I hope you enjoy the special section Tuesday and the coverage on Wednesday. More than 470 of you will be able to see yourselves in the paper literally.
Hmm. Getting nearly 500 readers’ mug shotes into the paper — each very tiny, but combined to create a portrait of the new president. A new president who will represent all of us, but will actually reflect a number of our faces in a way no president has ever done before.
Not bad, Greensboro. Not bad at all.