Charles Apple

During our inauguration coverage, David Sullivan of the Philadelphia Inquirer noticed something interesting — a new trend, perhaps. He writes:

Looking over the many poster pages for Obama, I was struck by the miniaturized or floating nameplates. Obviously with a full-page art element the rules are different, but some of them, such as the Salt Lake Tribune, looked so elegant without all the detritus we associate with the flag.

I wonder if there is any thought on this.

Great question, David. Seems like we’ve seen more and more of this in recent years. In fact, we have a few Virginian-Pilot fronts in our Art of Being Brilliant slideshow that are extreme examples of this:

You might remember this page, marking the fifth anniversary of 9/11. It earned Sam Hundley a gold award fron SND. The Pilot nameplate is completely gone, replaced with what is essentially a folio line.

So we looked at papers that downplayed their nameplates at some point last week — making it smaller, pushing it down the page or into a corner — in order to emphasize the lead art of the day. We asked editors and designers at those papers to tell us about how and why they messed with their nameplates.

—
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Denver, Colo.

The Rocky’s wrap-around tab cover, with a small
nameplate treatment at the extreme upper right.
—

Kathy Bogan, Presentation director

Q: How often before this week have you reduced the size or play of your usual nameplate?

A: We’ve changed it a bit for different events. When the Rockies were in the world series (sigh) we colored the background of the “Mountain News” part of our nameplate purple. When we had a special section during that Series, we wrapped th paper with it and had a completely different vcover with a small nameplate, but there was a “regular” page 1 inside the wrap. When the DNC was in town, we did special sections that wrapped the paper (there was still a “regular” page 1 inside) using our nameplate with the background of the “Mountain News” in blue and the words “Democratic National Convention” reversed under “Mountain News.” Back in the Bodoni nameplate days, when the Avs won the Stanley Cup and the Scripps lighthouse was still part of our flag, we lit it up red. When the Broncos won their first Super Bowl, we put a full bleed photo under the nameplate and reversed it out.

Q: Is it not a poor branding choice to downplay your nameplate? How do you justify doing this?

A: For the inauguration section, we’ve been developing our identity as “The Rocky” more and more deliberately over time. We think it’s distinctive, as much as “Rocky Mountain News.” It expresses our personality – friendly, familiar, conversational. This was an opportunity to push it even further. I mean, hey, what have we got to lose?

Q: Was this a tough sale in your newsroom?

A: Nope (it was the editor’s idea to begin with)

Q: Did you see some of the other papers that messed with their usual nameplate? What did you think?

A: I think the weight of the day justified taking a different approach. Also, we all knew it was going to happen, so there was time to think it through and prototype. We knew generally what kind of photos we were going to get and we knew we wanted to give readers a poster-like “keeper.” I wouldn’t have done this on the fly – in an unpredictable breaking news situation I would want to concentrate on the elements of the news itself, not changing the furniture on the page

Q: Now that you’ve had a few days to gaze at the tearsheet, what do you think? Would you do it again, if the A1  story merited it?

A: Yes, but it’s gotta be a very significant

—
NEWS-TOPIC
Lenoir, N.C.

John Josey, Managing editor/page designer

Q: How often before this week have you reduced the size or play of your usual nameplate?

A. This is the first time we’ve done this. We usually include the tagline “Caldwell County’s local news since 1875″ under the plate, but we pulled that off and bumped our plate down about 10 percent.

Q: Is it not a poor branding choice to downplay your nameplate? How do you justify doing this?

A. In terms of branding, I wouldn’t ordinarily advocate messing with the nameplate. It’s been my personal rule in the past to not even lay part of a cutout over it. With this event, however, we decided the historical significance overrode the importance of our logo, for lack of a better term.

Q: Was this a tough sale in your newsroom?

A. Not a tough sale at all. Our publisher was clear that there were no sacred cows when it came to the production of this page and our coverage of the event. That made it a lot easier to push boundaries.

Q: Did you see some of the other papers that messed with their usual nameplate? What did you think?

A. I think it’s a bold move, and it shows a willingness to do different things. In this climate, there’s nothing we shouldn’t consider.

Q: Now that you’ve had a few days to gaze at the tearsheet, what do you think? Would you do it again, if the A1  story merited it?

A. I’m a lot happier with it now than I was on Wednesday. I’d say if we had a strong enough story and a compelling enough reason to alter the plate, I’d be inclined to do it. Again, we can’t afford to think of where the boundaries are. Instead, we need to continually push them back whenever and wherever possible.

—
The Honolulu Advertiser
Honolulu, Hawaii

Christine Strobel, Design director

Q: Is it not a poor branding choice to downplay your nameplate? How do you justify doing this?

A. Our newspaper kiosks have our brand all over them, and the untraditional display worked really well in the kiosk windows (”A New Day” was above the fold with that image of the first family at the swearing in with lots of space around it - it really popped). As for store sales, I couldn’t say. I’ll be happy to send along individual sales numbers for that day once we get them in.

Q: Was this a tough sale in your newsroom?

A. My concern with running the full flag and all the associated text (”Breaking News 24/7 at HonoluluAdvertiser.com”, “State Edition” with rack prices, even our slogan: “Hawaii’s Newspaper”) would clutter up the display of the image. It needed to be clean. That’s the easy “design” angle of it. The reduced flag was [our editor's] first item of contention. But he couldn’t deny the impact of the display, so he approved. It was run by the publisher, first, however — we didn’t want anyone caught off guard. Ultimately, though, it wasn’t a hard sell.

Q: Now that you’ve had a few days to gaze at the tearsheet, what do you think? Would you do it again, if the A1  story merited it?

A. Absolutely, but I think it’s an “extraordinary event”-type of design. And if our sales numbers are poor, I can guarantee you I’ll be on a leash with that kind of treatment. I think it was the right choice.

—
South Florida Sun Sentinel
Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

Chris Mihal, News design director

Q: How often before this week have you reduced the size or play of your usual nameplate?

A. We only shrunk the nameplate on commemorative edition on Wednesday. Although, we do have a very different and stylized nameplate from the redesign. So often we’ll play with color and integrate into our everyday design.

Q: Is it not a poor branding choice to downplay your nameplate? How do you justify doing this?

A. It’s poor branding if you do it often. I believe it’s much easier to justify manipulating the nameplate on big news events such as Obama’s inauguration or presidential elections. This instance especially, we went into producing the front with the thought that somebody was going to keep it, possibly frame it.

Q: Was this a tough sale in your newsroom?

A. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a tough sale at all. We had several versions of the front posted, none of which he noticed we had manipulated the nameplate. Editors really spent time studying the photographs and the small amount of display type we used, which is what we wanted him, and our readers to do. When you try shrinking the nameplate, you want the content and the magnitude of the event come forward, not the name of the newspaper. Our readers know they’re holding a Sun Sentinel. We try very hard to distinguish ourselves down here.

Q: Did you see some of the other papers that messed with their usual nameplate? What did you think?

A. I thought the Salt Lake Tribune was very nicely done. That was the one I noticed. Otherwise, I paid more attention to the photo selection that day.

Q: Now that you’ve had a few days to gaze at the tearsheet, what do you think? Would you do it again, if the A1  story merited it?

A. Absolutely.

—
The Virginian-Pilot
Norfolk, Va.

Robert Suhay, Front page designer

Q: How often before this week have you reduced the size or play of your usual nameplate?

A. The Virginian-Pilot frequently adjusts the size and placement of its nameplate on Page 1. The decision flows out of a consideration for how that element best integrates with the visual presentation of the news, and may also be influenced by a sensitivity to the news. For instance, when we created a very minimal epitaph front to all those killed at Virginia Tech, the nameplate was done in shadowed white since it really appeared to blare out when it was in black.

At times, when integrated into the visual presentation, the nameplate simply becomes too dominant an element, and it may be scaled back to better fit in proportionally.

Some weeks, that type of tweak may be required daily. Other weeks (run of the mill weeks?) the treatment isn’t warranted.

Q: Is it not a poor branding choice to downplay your nameplate? How do you justify doing this?

A. The name of the paper always appears on the front in some fashion. In general, I would say the look of the paper, it’s typography, its visual display prop up the visual cue to readers. In our experience, the news sells, the nameplate doesn’t. Subscribers get it on their doorstep. Impulse buyers want a reason to spend their cash.

Q: Was this a tough sale in your newsroom?

A. Nope.

Q: Did you see some of the other papers that messed with their usual nameplate? What did you think?

A. When I looked at other papers on Wednesday, I look most at photo choice, headlines, integration, power, emotional connection. I think it is fairly clear that papers that best integrated the nameplate into the message they were trying to capture were most successful.

Take, for instance, Salt Lake. That was a stunning display of raw power through understatement. I saw another paper used a similar image of the president and first lady dancing over the seal. In that case, a headline was put into the photo and partially over the words in the seal. Totally didn’t work. You had type on type and it missed the point that the seal was the headline.

So, in that example, you see that the nameplate plays no part in achieving the message. For Utah, the shrinking just emphasized the power of all their other choices. Brilliant.

Q: Now that you’ve had a few days to gaze at the tearsheet, what do you think? Would you do it again, if the A1  story merited it?

A. Yep.

—
St. Petersburg Times
St. Petersburg, Fla.

Nikki Life, Design director

Q: How often before this week have you reduced the size or play of your usual nameplate?

A. We minimize the mast if the news and photo play warrant it. Some big stories we’ve treated this way: the pope’s death, Rays make the playoffs and then win the ALCS, the Gators win the national championship, Obama’s inauguration.

Q: Is it not a poor branding choice to downplay your nameplate? How do you justify doing this?

A. Our nameplate ran at about 70% of it’s normal size but was still at the top of the page. I had planned on reversing it out but our choice of photo made it difficult to read that way and I pulled it out.
We also ran our regular size mast on page three. What appeared on the “front” of the paper that day was a 4-page wrap around.

Q: Was this a tough sale in your newsroom?

A. Not really. I probably went through about 20 or so versions with different photos and whatnot. When we decided on the photo, we looked at the nameplate several different ways and thought this was a good compromise that made the page still feel collectible.

Q: Now that you’ve had a few days to gaze at the tearsheet, what do you think? Would you do it again, if the A1  story merited it?

A. Yes, I would definitely do it again especially since it was meant to be a keepsake, hang-it-on-your-wall page. I didn’t want the nameplate to overwhelm the page.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 at 9:29 am and is filed under 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.