In the early age of
newspaper industry in India, news design was not at all considered seriously. Sub editors did it with
much care and concentration. It was part of their duty. But lack of interest and technical know-how made it difficult to keep design standards up. Some how they managed. And the reader never complained! Remember the good old days of hot-metal typesetting, the production of
newspaper pages was unimaginatively painful. Neatly-typed copy would rapidly degenerate into barely-intelligible scrawl before being transferred, together with a roughly-scratched layout, along a tube into the bowels of the building. There, a gang of artisans would miraculously turn it into a newspaper.
Slowly, things began to change. Hot-metal gave way to cold-type revolution of the ''60s. Then came the noble Linotypes of the ''70s. And finally, the real desk top publishing systems of the''80s. And it was a revolution at the news desks.
In India, it was the India Today
magazine group which tried the new desk top publishing systems effectively. They brought the cute Macintosh machines with colour monitors. The art department at that time consisted of an Art director and some visualisers and layout artists experimented with the machine. All were exited over the possibilities. The trendy look of the magazine attracted more and more readers.
This was the time, magazine editors took charge as editors of newspapers in India. They, with an experience of magazine production wanted to give a fresh look for their newspapers. For the first time, many newspapers started their own art departments. Full broadsheet pages were made on desk top publishing systems. It was very easy to make last minute changes. So, the editors loved the system.
The newspaper''s look always matter. The objectives of page make-up can be summarised in two words: legibility and clarity. A picture is worth a thousand words. This old saying will continue to be true. Readers are now more and more design conscious. This is because they are connected to the world wide design trends. Television and Internet gives them visual satisfaction. So, it has become necessary to take more care on the presentation part of any newspaper.
Editorial Design System
There should be four basic visual elements, which can be used as effective visual communication tools of the paper.
1. Photographs
2. Infographics and maps
3. Illustrations and caricatures
4. Intros, slugs and blurbs
Selection of photographs will depend on the quality of the photograph and the news value. All photographs will be colour corrected and cropped appropriately. News desks should alert the design team for any possible infographics or Maps to go with related stories. Some light stories can have illustrations or caricatures.
How can we achieve this?
Let us start with a modular layout system. This system allows a traditional vertical alignment in the information elements of news items. The heading, intro, photo, text, blurb, caption and boxes. Then comes the horizontal alignment of items. The white space flow in both horizontal and vertical direction gives the reader a sense of reading order.
Visual hierarchy is the most important thing to be considered while making pages. You must have a lead story, powerful photographs and, not to have everything treated on the same editorial level. You should also focus on systematic use of editorial space.
In order to create reading habits, constantly place a position for certain types of information in the local page sections (Cinema and Engagements) as editorial space principle. This allows the reader to get indexed to the information he is looking for. It is not the graphics alone that surprises the readers but the information too. And it is true that some items of information are more easily understandable when accompanied by graphics. Here comes the possibility of infographics.
While preparing infographics, you should be very careful. Be very clear about what you are going to present. Never ever confuse the reader. The information should flow freely from the top to bottom of the space provided. The colour selections should be meaningful. Graphic elements should match the situation.
Interaction with ad scheduling:
The modular layout system has to be maintained in advertisement scheduling also. The news desks will interact with advertisement scheduling departments to keep a horizontal layout for all possible pages.
A core team of professionals from design, news desk and reporting should review the daily pages and suggest improvements. This team will act as ombudsman, advocating the readers. This will help you getting the right feedback from your readers. Maybe you can even start an interactive column too.