Charles Apple

Several papers chose to run big inaugural treatments on their Sunday fronts — despite the fact the inauguration is still two days away.

In some cases, these treatments were essentially covers to inauguration preview fronts. In other cases: Well, hell, given how well Barack Obama pages sell, does an editor need a good reason to put him out front?

Here are a few of our Sunday favorites…

The Macon Telegraph blew out their entire front with this outstanding illustration.

Was this really the paper’s page one, or was it simply a wrap to its Inaugural Preview section? The former, we suspect: Note the bar code at bottom left. And this was the page posted Sunday at the Newseum.

The Pioneer Press of St. Paul, Minn., went with this black-and-white cutout of a Getty photo:

Senior editor for visuals Lauri Hopple writes:

Basically, this was Sunday designer Ben Ramsden’s baby all the way.

We all knew we wanted an Obama display for that Sunday cover, leading off the inauguration preview, but we didn’t expect live art. Especially for our Sunday Peach edition, which publishes Saturday mornings.

So, Ben whipped up a mock-up, left a Peach proof and asked if we would consider it for the full run.

Yes, unanimously.

We left a little fudge factor: Ben built an alternate display for the weekend crew to pick up if live art came through that blew the socks off our photodesk. But nothing came close.

Outstanding! Design consultant Alan Jacobson thought so too, naming this page his Best Front Design of the day:

There’s more than one way to say big without crowding all the text off the page. The Pioneer Press found a way today. This page communicates the size of the Obama story and still has plenty of room to tell – as well as show – the story.

Likewise, we loved the subtle handling of color and typography by the designer of this front by the Salt Lake Tribune:

Look how the colors all relate between the pie graphs, the photo of the Capitol building and the skybox up top. And does anyone tweak typography better than the Tribune these days?

That was Colin Smith, by the way. Outstanding. Just outstanding.

The Southtown Star of Tinley Park, Ill., produced this wonderful display using an AP photo, nicely designed copy blocks and a Cardinals logo that just so happened to perfectly set off all the other colors:

Before the Cardinals were in Phoenix, you see, they were in St. Louis. And before that, they were the Chicago Cardinals. Kudos to the Star for reaching waaaay back for that local angle!

Also, see that “Be an Obama” thing across the bottom? That’s a promo to the Star’s web site, where you can download fun PDF cut-out masks of Barack and Michelle Obama:

All you need is a printer and a popsicle stick. And we know how many popsicles you’re eating this time of year.

Find the masks here.

We really liked this front by the Herald Times Reporter of Manitowoc, Wis…

But we also spotted that same photo-and-Presidential seal on a couple of other small-town Gannett fronts Sunday. Which means it’s probably a GNS piece.

However, the designers in Manitowoc did manage to display the art well by keeping the rest of the front very, very clean. Sometimes, that’s the designer’s greatest challenge: To use art or a photo large and then get the hell out of its way.

We’ll close with one we didn’t exactly care for all that much:

When did the Boston Herald become an alt-weekly? That’s what this cartoon seems like — it’s an awfully unbalanced treatment for a daily.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 18th, 2009 at 9:50 pm and is filed under Elections, Innovative ideas, News design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.