Charles Apple

While just about everyone referred to the NCAA basketball tournament bracket pairings off their front pages today, not many papers led with hoops as its centerpiece package. At least among the papers I found posted today at the Newseum.

Here’s a quick look at the most interesting.

The display of the day with the most impact was — not surprisingly — the Herald-Leader of Lexington, Ky. — circulation 99,707 — which not only had to cover their home team’s win in overtime Sunday, but also their No. 1 seeding:

The nice celebration photo is by staffer Mark Cornelison. The designer — Jeff Bowen — had the good sense to run the picture big and get the hell out of its way. Often, that’s the best thing a designer can do. It sure worked here.

The Herald-Leader’s Dennis Varney tells us the Bracket Monday papers is…

…always one of our best-selling papers of the year, especially now that Kentucky is back near the top of the rankings.

No doubt.

Up the road in Louisville, the Courier-Journal also ran a photo of the University of Kentucky, but selected a horizontal one to anchor what is basically a vertical package:

As a result, the page looks a little text-heavy. The photo tends to get lost among all that copy. The designer was forced to resort to large logos and thumbnail info to give readers an above-the-fold focal point.

The picture is by Brian Bohannon of the Associated Press. Average daily circulation for the Courier-Journal is 176,63.

My favorite A1 presentation of the day was this one by the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash., circulation 89,779:

Deputy design director Ralph Walter tells us the page…

…was designed by Geoff Pinnock, our senior editor for visuals and production. As for planning, I believe he had most of it set up in advance, knowing that we’d have five games first-round games to profile — the four that Spokane will host on Friday, as well as Gonzaga on the road.

Geoff built an attractive, energetic package with an artful selection — and tight, creative cropping — of action shots. Of the ten, the photo that is least effective is the one at the top right — that yellow background jumps out a little too much, compared too the others. But that’s a minor nit. The package is big and bold, yet the typography is elegant and the white space provides a nice buffer from the rest of the page.

Ralph also filled me in on something I hadn’t seen:

We also did a special section cover that wrapped our sports section … a big blowout of Gonzaga’s first-round matchup against Florida State.

Click for a larger view:

Initially when we started planning, we thought Gonzaga might have a chance to play its first round in Spokane as a No. 4 seed. Our hope was that maybe we could wrap the entire paper with it. After a couple of bad late losses, though, those hopes were derailed. Anyway, that cover was designed by a former staffer here who used to work at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and now freelances in Seattle.  Her name is Bridget Sawicki.

While Spokane led A1 the teams headed there for first-round games later this week, the Post-Standard of Syracuse — not surprisingly — kept its focus on the hometown boys and the four teams it expects Syracuse will have to beat to get to win a national championship:

This is a bit complex — much more suited, perhaps, for the sports front than for A1. Or so conventional wisdom would tell us.

I’d argue, though, that this is Syracuse. Not only is this most definitely the talker story of the day, but also readers of the Post-Standard may have more knowledge of big-time basketball this year than those in some locations.

Like, you know, in Chapel Hill. Heh.

The Post-Standard circulates 93,688 copies daily.

The Herald of Bradenton, Fla. — circulation 48,618 — blew out Bracket Monday all over A1 today, showing the first round pairings and logos for the No. 1 seeds, arranged around an arresting AP celebration shot of the Kentucky game.

The bracket pieces and logos make for a busy page. But busy in a good way. Lively, perhaps. At least the photo is large enough to provide a visual focal point.

That wasn’t the case so much for the Cincinnati Enquirer. The photos here seem small and the bullet-point info seems poured into the corners. The whole package seems a little lightweight — both the across-the-river version (left) and the Ohio version (right) (click either for a larger view):

Average daily circulation for the Enquirer is 168,511.

The Wichita Eagle fell into the old trap of having to give equal weight to two in-state colleges going to the dance:

The overall effect does have much more visual impact than, say, Cincinnati’s pages. But it might have had even more if, say, the designer had played up the Kansas photo and played down the K-State picture. The justification is in the deck: Kansas was named a No. 1 seed.

Now, that’s my critique. But I understand why the designer didn’t do this. At many papers, play one school over the other and your boss spends the next day taking calls from fans of the downplayed school, accusing you of bias and threatening to drop their subscriptions. Sigh…

Average daily circulation for the Eagle is 82,912.

The Baltimore Sun — circulation 186,639 — used a tint box and black frames around its lead photo package in an attempt to tie its A1 package together:

These measures were necessary mostly because the lead photo — of Morgan State players celebrating with their coach when they learned of their seed — is awfully weak. It was shot from an awkward angle and, I suspect, under challenging lighting conditions.

Still, as the song says: You have to know when to hold ‘em and when to fold ‘em. This probably should have been bumped off the front. The rest of the package seems solid.

The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson, Miss., also used a tint box to tie together a variety of photos, bullet points and stories. I like this one a lot — mostly because of the great photo of the Mississippi State coach, just as Kentucky beat his team in overtime:

The picture is by Dave Martin of the Associated Press.

Also, note the headline: Minor Madness. This page is about the teams that are not going to the NCAA Tournament — instead, they’re playing in the NIT or other events. This is a very clever way of making that point.

What might be improved here? The three little pictures down the left side of the package just don’t work. Basically, they’re vertical photos, crammed into horizontal spaces. You wind up with either awkwardly-cropped extremities — like in the top picture — or way too much dead space on either side of the subject matter — as in the second picture. I’ve found it best to avoid horizontal pictures when designing hoops pages.

I also think the white box at the lower right is awkward. Remove the box and let that little rail run down the right side, on the tinted background. Square off the top, perhaps, with the top of the headline. If you need something to set it off, try a little rule down the left side. But a box here is redundant and clunky.

Average daily circulation for the Clarion-Ledger is 82,673.

A few papers — especially tabloids — built photoillustrations for A1. This one — on the front of Express, the Washington Post’s free commuter tab — seems to have no real point, other than including three players from Georgetown University, in D.C.:

About the only thing good I can say here is the background color. It contrasts well with the paper’s blue nameplate.

RedEye — the Chicago Tribune’s free commuter tab — was quite a bit more successful, visually, mixing players from all four No. 1 seeds — plus the quasi-”local” team in the tournament, Notre Dame — with a Full Court headline and a background that evokes the planks in a wood floor:

By far the best photoillustrative splash was made today by the Philadelphia Daily News, circulation 107,269 (click for a larger view):

The players are all from Temple and Villanova — both are local schools, of course. I didn’t catch the credit for this piece, but man, it sure is nice.

I wasn’t overly impressed with the cover of today’s D.C. Examiner. The reason I’m showing it to you, though, is because of the headline.

Does this bother you? Let’s see a show of hands…

So why would you abbreviate Syracuse with a period but not Kentucky? Is it because “KY” is the accepted postal abbreviation? If so, I’d argue it must be two capital letters.

I also laughed at the promo in the lower left about “President Spock.” For the Examiner to say President Obama’s “cool logic” is no longer working would be to imply it has been working up to now.

Is that what the Examiner has been reporting? I doubt it.

Most U.S. papers put fat promos to the NCAA pairings on page one today — many of them across the top of the page. I was intrigued by this one atop today’s Plain Dealer of Cleveland:

Click this for a larger view:

David Kordalski tells us the art was created for this front — in other words, it wasn’t part of the eight-page section. The artist was Ted Crow, who worked with Michael Tribble and Emmet Smith.

Average daily circulation for the Plain Dealer is 271,180.

And while I normally urge folks to stay away from overly busy presentations above the fold on page one, this one caught my eye as well:

That’s the Tribune Eagle of Cheyenne, Wyo., circulation 15,762.

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There are a couple of things posted already at SportsDesigner, and there will be more soon. I’m talking about all the enormously interesting and creative special section covers, brackets and other sports-intensive pages having to do with the tournament.

SportsDesigner founder Rich Boudet asks if you have anything cool to contribute, please send it to him at:

bodayguy [at] yahoo.com

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My own loyalties in the tournament are divided this year. While I’m a huge fan of Clemson University — which takes on Missouri Friday — I happen to be an alumnus of tiny Winthrop College University of Rock Hill, S.C.

Winthrop is making its ninth appearance in the NCAA Tournament in 11 years. And back in the early 1980s — while I was in school there and before many of you guys were born — I worked in Winthrop’s sports information office, writing press releases, typing stat sheets and illustrating various posters, flyers and T-shirts:

My predictions:

1. Winthrop might make it out of the play-in game Tuesday but why bother? The winner plays Duke.
2. Clemson will get slaughtered by Missouri Friday. Even if they win, they’ll likely go up against West Virginia Sunday.
3. By mid-afternoon Friday, my brackets will be worth bupkiss.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 6:41 pm and is filed under A look at the day's fronts, News design, Sports design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.