More Color, Graphics : Newspapers Going for a New Look

What’s black and white and read all over?

A newspaper.

That, at least, is how the old joke used to go.

But newspaper editors, increasingly concerned that newspapers are not read all over anymore in the era of television, are replacing black and white with red and blue--and green and yellow and orange and purple and. . . .

Newspapers from Orange County to Orlando, Fla., are sprucing up their pages with color photographs, color maps and color illustrations of all kinds, shapes and sizes.

Indeed, the entire appearance of many newspapers is being redesigned from coast to coast: New sections. New typefaces. More drawings and charts and graphs. More news summaries and “chronologies” of major events. Fewer stories on the front page. More (and bigger) photographs. Wider (and fewer) columns on a page. A more complete index. New headline and byline styles. Front-page “teasers” referring to stories inside the paper. Provocative quotations lifted out of a story and displayed separately, in larger type, to catch the reader’s eye and lure him into the story itself.

“We’re trying to answer the question ‘How do you get people to read the paper?’ ” says Michael Janeway, executive editor of the Boston Globe. “What are the hooks, the enticements, the invitations you issue to readers?”

Most editors say these changes in the heretofore gray, often drab and disorganized newspaper format are long overdue. But some editors worry that the changes could distort newspapers’ priorities (and damage their credibility) even as they improve their visual appeal.

Computer technology now makes it possible, for example, to change, instantly and electronically, not only the color but the actual composition of a photograph. Four years ago, National Geographic magazine used one of these new machines to move two Egyptian pyramids closer together than they actually are, just to accommodate the shape of the magazine cover.

‘Potential for Abuse’

This was a relatively harmless adjustment; the photographer could have achieved the desired effect himself if he’d moved 20 feet to the side to change his angle before taking the picture, says Rich Clarkson, director of photography for National Geographic. But even Clarkson concedes that “the potential for abuse is there” with the new technology.

Suppose a newspaper trying to link someone to suspected illegal activity inserted that person into a photograph of a group of terrorists or organized crime figures when the person was actually 1,000 miles away and had never met the other people in the picture? Technologically, that’s now easy to do.

This is an extreme example, of course--something no responsible newspaper would even consider. But there is a general uneasiness among some editors these days about all aspects of the new technology and the new design consciousness--uneasiness about potential conflicts between style and substance, between appearance and content.

“Editors are more interested in what their papers look like than at any time in the past,” says Gene Roberts, executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “and anything that makes the newspaper . . . easier and more inviting to read is a good thing to do . . . especially . . . when what you make easier to read is worth reading . . . when it’s part and parcel of a good, comprehensive journalistic effort to improve the paper substantively. But in some cases, all these design techniques have been used as a substitute for substance.”

Concerns of Design Pioneer

Ironically, one of the most outspoken critics of the trend toward journalistic beautification is Edmund C. Arnold, a pioneer in the field of newspaper design and the author of three books on the subject, dating back to 1956.

“A lot of papers are hiring designers who have no journalistic background or training . . . and who are not only not word people but are anti-word people,” Arnold says. “I shudder when I hear designers argue that one important story or another shouldn’t be on Page 1 because ‘we don’t have a good graphic (photo or drawing) to go with it.’

“These designers think of decoration and forget that we’re in the communication business. In a lot of instances, form is becoming more important than content, and . . . I am adamant--I am fanatic--that, goddamn it, we’re communications people, we communicate in words, and words are the most important part of a newspaper.”

Is Arnold overreacting?

Many editors think so.

“You try to use graphics, design, map, charts, illustration as tools to better tell the news,” says Robert Haiman, former executive editor of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times. “It’s a cop-out . . . (to) say, ‘Well, I’m not really interested in getting that design-oriented at my newspaper because I’m afraid that if I do, I’ll look up one day and realize that content, news, has taken a back seat (to design).’ ”

‘Content Always Comes First’

A good editor just doesn’t let that happen, Haiman says. “Content always comes first. You . . . never subjugate the content to the design.”

But what triggered all the recent changes in newspaper design anyway? Why, after generations of relatively static, somber, black-and-white pages, are newspapers suddenly blossoming like a garden in springtime?

“We’re in the Television Age,” says William Dunn, managing editor of the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel, “and we’re discovering how static print can be, especially to a younger generation, so we’re actively seeking ways to make newspapers visually energetic . . . as animated as possible.”

Television isn’t solely responsible for this transformation, though. News magazines, special-interest magazines, music videos, videocassettes and roadside billboards also contribute to a general atmosphere of visual excitement that newspapers now find themselves forced to compete in.

“Even your personal checks are colorful and pretty instead of plain now,” says Mario Garcia, the author of “Contemporary Newspaper Design.”

Moreover, declining newspaper readership, increased competition for the reader’s leisure time and dramatic advances in newspaper production technology have simultaneously made it both necessary and possible to revolutionize the appearance of the daily newspaper.

Over the last 35 years, the number of newspapers per 100 American households has plummeted 40%; in the last 20 years, the population of the United States has increased four times faster than has daily newspaper circulation. Newspapers can no longer take it for granted that they’ll be read just so long as they’re accurate, complete and responsible--especially not when polls show a significant number of readers don’t think newspapers are any of the three.

Satisfying the Readers

Newspapers today must also be attractive and inviting, organized and consistent; they must make it easier and more enjoyable for their readers to find--and to read--what interests them.

The New York Herald Tribune was probably the first big-city newspaper to make radical departures from traditional newspaper design, in the early-to-mid 1960s, before its merger and demise in 1966. The St. Petersburg Times was also among the pioneers in the redesign movement and--in the early 1960s--it became perhaps the first American newspaper to use good-quality color on a daily basis.

A few other innovative editors--in Louisville, Ky.; Minneapolis, and elsewhere--experimented with new approaches to the presentation of news and pictures in the early 1970s. But it wasn’t until the mid-to-late 1970s that many editors first began to think seriously about trying to adapt the looks of their newspapers to the realities of contemporary life.

The New York Times played a major role in this evolutionary process when, among other things, it redesigned its Sunday business and book review sections, added five new daily feature sections with striking, extravagantly illustrated front pages and even began publishing a Sunday travel section with no stories at all on its front page, just headlines and photographs.

The willingness of the New York Times to make such major changes legitimized redesign for many other newspapers. If redesign was acceptable at the New York Times--the nation’s preeminent word newspaper, the “prototypical traditionalist newspaper” in the words of Andrew Barnes, editor of the St. Petersburg Times--then it was acceptable at other newspapers, too.

But the changes in the appearance of the New York Times came neither quickly nor easily.

Louis Silverstein, corporate art director for the New York Times Co. until his retirement last year, said recently that when Times top executives first became interested in modernizing and improving the appearance of the paper, there was much anxiety about the reaction of editors and reporters to these alterations; indeed, Silverstein says the man designated as liaison between him and the publisher “had to come to my office via the fire escape and tap on my window so I could let him in without anyone else seeing him.”

Design Movement’s ‘Godfather’

Subsequently, when A. M. Rosenthal became executive editor of the Times, Rosenthal and Silverstein--initially quite hostile to each other--began working together to redesign the Times. Rosenthal came to see design as essential to the modern newspaper, and Silverstein came to be viewed as the “godfather” of the modern newspaper design movement.

But a sudden confluence of bad economic news helped intensify interest in newspaper redesign more than anything any single newspaper did: From 1973 to 1975, daily newspaper circulation dropped 4.6%, and daily newspaper readership dropped 7%--the first such declines in more than 40 years; at about the same time, rapidly increasing newsprint costs made it imperative to get the most efficient use of the space available in each day’s paper.

Reader skepticism of--and downright hostility toward--newspapers also helped persuade editors (and their publishers) that it was essential to re-examine the role and function of the newspaper; the physical appearance of the paper was just one of many areas they started looking at.

In the decade since then--and especially in the last five years--newspapers large and small have hired professional designers, either as full-time employes or as part-time consultants, and they have made changes both subtle and sweeping in the pages they present to their readers every day.

The Washington Post, for example, hired the man who redesigned Time magazine to redesign the Post in 1984, then hired the art director of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner to implement that design on a continuing basis. The Chicago Tribune began redesigning in the 1970s, redesigned almost completely in 1982, continued to make modifications in the years that followed and--late last year--created a 45-person design desk to coordinate and execute design functions throughout the paper.

Some newspapers redesign gradually, a section and a step at a time, with no formal announcement of what they’re doing; editors at these papers worry that readers long accustomed to a particular look and feel in their paper will be discomfited, even offended by any changes, and the editors hope to make the changes so gradually and subtley that readers won’t really perceive them as changes.

Redesign Is a Big Event

Other newspapers make a big public event out of a redesign--as in the case of the Fargo (N.D.) Forum, which published full-page ads explaining each major change ahead of time; ran commercials on the local radio and television stations for two weeks before the redesign began; showed prototypes of the redesigned paper to “focus groups” of citizens; sponsored a cocktail reception and videotape presentation for 500 businessmen three days before the debut of the redesigned paper, and published a front-page story by editor Joe Dill and a photo of the paper’s design consultant the day the redesigned paper first appeared.

Whatever their design strategy, newspapers clearly look different today than ever before, and at no time has this metamorphosis been more striking than in coverage of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in January.

Eighteen years ago, when astronauts Virgil (Gus) Grissom, Edward White II and Roger Chaffee were killed in a flash fire aboard their Apollo I spacecraft, newspapers generally covered the event with long stories and black-and-white photos, presented in the somewhat untidy format then typical of most newspapers. On Jan. 29, 1986, though, newspapers throughout the country published large, color photographs, drawings, charts and chronologies on the Challenger explosion--and most of the material was presented in an orderly and attractive manner, with stories broken into various components and organized newsmagazine-style in special sections or on consecutive, carefully designed, often ad-free pages, with page titles and even subtitles that told readers at a glance what they could expect to find on each page.

The nation’s newest major daily newspaper, USA Today, didn’t publish a single story on its front page the day after the shuttle explosion--just a colorful, composite illustration that filled three-fourths of the page (along with a smaller illustration on the history of shuttle flight and the paper’s daily news summary); inside the paper were six more pages of stories, photos and statistics, including color photos of the dead astronauts and a full-page chronology of events leading up to the explosion, complete with five more color photos.

There was no USA Today in 1967, when the fatal Apollo fire broke out. In fact, there was no USA Today until Sept. 15, 1982--and while many editors deny that USA Today has had any real impact on the appearance of their own papers, many other editors say USA Today has been second only to television in that impact.

For one thing, the use of color in daily newspapers has increased dramatically since USA Today made its debut, suddenly alarming some publishers with its colorful presence on newsstands and in coin boxes directly alongside their own black-and-white papers.

“USA Today has had the greatest impact on the newspaper industry of anything since I’ve been around,” says Tony Majeri, creative director of the Chicago Tribune since 1968. “No one has had their influence. They’ve given us quality color and the confidence to use it.”

Equally important, USA Today uses what are known in the trade as “informational graphics”--drawings, charts, graphs and maps--with greater frequency than any other American daily newspaper has ever done.

Although the use of both color and graphics was increasing before the arrival of USA Today, the new newspaper clearly accelerated both trends, and many editors concede that USA Today forced them to analyze and reevaluate their own approach to news presentation.

“I give them a lot of credit,” says Barnes of the St. Petersburg Times. “I was pretty contemptuous of them initially, and I’m not any longer. They’ve got some very able people working in quite an open and creative way on that paper.”

USA Today is different from--and more design-conscious than--every other paper because it’s new. Most editors, even editors who hire consultants to redesign their papers, really just want moderate redecoration, not organic redesign, says Walter Bernard, who redesigned Time magazine and, more recently, the Washington Post.

Too often these editors, having seen USA Today and having heard their peers use the buzzwords “graphics” and “redesign,” hire a design consultant, give him limited authority--and wind up with a paper that changes its appearance only enough to look vaguely like virtually every other paper that’s been “redesigned” recently.

Fear of Homogenization

Many editors (and designers) worry that this homogenization of the American press may be the lasting--and most damaging--legacy of the design movement. The diversity of the press, already threatened by the growing trend toward chain ownership and monopoly newspapers, could be further undermined by the trend toward copycat design--color photos, flashy graphics, front-page “teasers” and an overall similarity in appearance.

“Every time I’ve talked to an editor . . . and I’m not talking about the Washington Post specifically . . . their concept of making visual changes seems to be very conventional,” Bernard says. “Basically, they want a few more charts and . . . some color. They’re unwilling to . . . rethink their entire paper . . . (to) start with a blank page.”

USA Today started with a blank page; no one on the staff could say, “We’ve never done it that way before,” says Richard Curtis, managing editor for graphics and photography at USA Today. “The philosophy of the paper has always been, from day one, that it will be strong graphically. . . . It’s . . . almost impossible, if not impossible to get a major . . . story . . . in the paper without involving this department. It’s part of the universal mind-set.”

Curtis and members of his staff participate in every important meeting at USA Today, whether it’s a discussion of the next day’s front page or a planning session on a major research project. The paper’s daily story idea meeting is led by a different editor each day, and Curtis takes his turn leading the group and suggesting story possibilities, just as the news, financial and other top editors do--an unheard-of practice at the vast majority of newspapers.

But precisely because USA Today is a unique and innovative newspaper, other journalists are divided about its design (as well as about its content).

Some say USA Today is strikingly attractive, brilliantly designed to serve its audience of travelers, busy professionals and younger readers, nurtured by television and more interested in quick bites of information (“factoids”) than in a full meal of long stories recounting and analyzing the day’s news.

Other journalists--designers and editors alike--say that too many of USA Today’s informational graphics are gaudy, with a cartoon quality that belies the serious information they convey. The paper sometimes looks more like a comic book than a newspaper, they say, and with its high-energy format of bright colors, short stories and informational graphics throughout, USA Today is too cluttered, too much a garish jumble; it operates at a constant high pitch that offers no shadings, subtleties or perspective from story to story or from page to page (an approach USA Today says is specifically designed to attract an audience of newsstand buyers who usually don’t see the paper every day).

Despite the controversy it engenders, there is little question that USA Today has probably had its greatest impact on newspapers by forcing them to use color sooner than they might have--if only so they could compete with magazines and television for lucrative color advertising.

It’s ironic that while the presence and configuration of advertising have long contributed to the disorderly look of most newspapers--and compromised the redesign of some--the potential for using color advertising has encouraged many papers not only to use color on their news and feature pages but to pay more attention to their overall appearance as well.

Susanna Shuster of the Times editorial library assisted with the research for this story.