Nice work Lewiston

It's always a nice surprise when I'm browsing Newseum thumbnails and I click on something striking to get a better look -- and it turns out to be a newspaper I'm familiar with. Having gone to school in Pullman, Wash., Lewiston was practically down the road 40 minutes. I've see the inside of their newsroom. And I was pleased to see this gorgeous play of such an eye-catching photo.

A nice 'one year later' page

Late page of the week

I loved this Fresno page from July 8, but failed to post it until now. But here it is:

And now for some white space

Here's my page of the week:

Looking good, Rocky Mountain News

these economic times

Here's my page of the week. I'm not a huge fan of boxy screens and the L design of papers like the Kansas City Star, but that's my own personal design taste. Despite all that, the economy was a huge story for today with oil prices, the jobless rate and the Dow drop. Of all the papers that had a front page economy presence, the KC Star was easy to scan and easy to digest why Friday marked a troubling day for the economy.

My only criticism: A rollercoaster wrapped with downward-economy news? Bad juxtaposition.

nice edit

This is a bold photo edit covering an issue that polarizes many. I like it. I know more than one editor that would have not allowed this photo to run front and center.

This one caugh my eye

I like the marionette/big brother feeling this illustration has.

Merry NCAA-ing

In light of the March Madness in the air, here's my page of the week, straight from Omaha, Nebraska is the World-Herald:
























The scoreboard treatment is clever, but not too cute. The "out of reach" word play works. The photos have good crops and the typography is nicely done. There's a nice mix of stories and promos.

Keeping in clean in Chicago

I'll be picking a standout page of the week from my daily visits to the many sites where designers display their stuff.

This week:
The Chicago Tribune.

I like the stark clean look of this page today. There's nothing fancy. Just an amazing photo, with a great crop. Those eyes are all I need to enter this page and carry me into the content. That and that excellent hierarchy of headlines. No fancy sidebars, alt presentation of glitzy extras: just good, clean design.

The Chicago Tribune has gotten cleaner and simpler with fresh new flag on Jan. 14, when they ditched the 25-year-old white on blue nameplate, according to the SND Update blog. Here's a clip from a Q&A with the paper's AME of design and architect of the new masthead:

"What was the thinking behind changing the blue background to white in the Tribune's flag?
Joe Knowles: "We felt it was time to update it. Our world has changed quite a bit since we introduced the white-on-blue version 25 years ago. Color was a relatively new thing on Page 1 back then. We knew the blue bar had become a powerful brand identifier for the Tribune... it was originally developed to stand out and be distinctive and it certainly did its job. But it had become overpowering in a way. It was a difficult visual element to overcome on the page. The new one lets the content come forward. That's how we want to distinguish ourselves now."

I couldn't agree more. The page above is a perfect example of how the Tribune is putting content first.