mario garcia

100

Opinion pagesTraditionally, opinion pages are the last to get looked at in a

redesign project. Yet, editorial/opinion pages are some of the

strongest in terms of content; it is there that a newspaper exposes

its soul, convinces its readers of what routes to follow in daily life.

In the redesign of the San Jose Mercury News the editors really

wanted to update their opinion pages, to make them useful and

attractive to younger readers. To achieve this, we allowed for hori-

zontal placement of the editorial at the top of the page. For reasons

that have to do with tradition, most newspapers run editorials

vertically to the left. Eighty-five percent of all newspapers follow

that model.

Yet readers know nothing about “set patterns” for editorial pages.

They simply know that these are the newspaper’s opinion pieces.

To design editorial pages that set the pages apart:

Use bolder fonts in conjunction with lighter ones.

Use a photograph or illustration whenever possible.

Inject quotes and highlights to attract scanning readers. Sometimes

editorial headlines are abstract; a quote may be more specific.

Write more direct headlines!

Remember that if the “opinion” of the designer is to be included,

it should be expressed through white space.

pure design

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Inviting in the reader: For a pro-posed Spanish daily edition of theDallas Morning News, we aban-doned the editorial on the left,columns on the right, and text-driven architecture. Instead, illus-tration dominates the page, maineditorial runs across the top of thepage, and columns are short, allow-ing for white space.