New nameplates under construction

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Julie and Kayla have been refining the flush left nameplate treatments.

One of the challenges is including the many elements the TCU Daily Skiff requires into the nameplate.

Another is keeping the freshness of the flush left display but incorporating a treatment that will stand with authority as a source of daily news and community information.

Samples are shown above.

Please leave comments.

Refer to the numbers below each nameplate when leaving a comment.

How do you expect the page count to change with a tab?

On May 25, Anonymous asked...
How do you expect the page count to change with a tab?

Last year the smallest broadsheet product was 6 pages.
Expect 12 to be the lowest page count of the Daily Skiff in the 2010 - 2011 school year.
Just like in the broadsheet, as advertising increases or big news stories break, the page count will increase.
But with a tabloid product the pages will increase in multiples of four.
That means the paper will jump from a 12 to a 16, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40 or 48-page product.

Flush left nameplate most popular, refinement next

It appears that the flush left nameplate has received the most support from our TCU community.
That and a newer, cleaner version of the old nameplate claimed the top two positions in last week's poll.

In a May 22 comment, Kimmy Daycock wrote:
Out of all the options, I like "A," especially the new logo.


Handwritten comments on pages posted in the library and the BLUU expressed the same opinion and general appreciation for the new format.

This week we will post refinements of the flush left nameplate and seek additional feedback from our readers.

The students on the redesign team will also plunge into the interior of the Skiff and look at the presentation of bylines, page labels, cutlines, etc. and begin construction of the Opinions pages and the etc. package.

Not familiar with a daily tabloid newspaper?

If you are not familiar with the way a daily tabloid newspaper looks or reads, go to the electronic editions of Stars and Stripes.

You can get a good feel for the packaging and story positions a tabloid has to offer.

You can also read the 6 different editions published each day.

Smaller size is not a financial decision

Anonymous asked in a comment to the May 18 post:

They all look tiny compared to the paper we have now. Is the idea to save money and go with a smaller paper?

The prototype covers posted on this blog may look tiny but I urge you to see the actual pages that should be posted in the library and the BLUU. The originals are roughly the size of an 11" x 17" sheet of paper.
In fact, the image area of the tabloid is exactly the same width of the old broadsheet.

As far as saving money, that was never a reason to move to the tabloid format.
Portability and a faster, friendlier read were the main factors.
We also took the average 6-page Daily Skiff and basically folded it in half to create a daily standard of 12 pages for the new product.
Production costs are similar for the old and new newspapers.

Page one layouts and new nameplates

Julie and Kayla have created several page one treatments for story layout and how the name of the Daily Skiff might appear.

One of our redesign team members, Paige McArdle, headed out yesterday to see if we might be able to post black & white, full-size copies of these covers at the BLUU and the library with Post-it notes for folks to write down their comments.

I've posted mini-versions today and invite any of those following the redesign to comment or vote on the covers.

Refer to the letter in the circle on each version when commenting or voting.






















The new Skiff could feature a variety of layouts options or stick with one or two formats. Displays range from a single photo to photos with stories to no stories at all, just photos and teases to the inside content.

Let us know if you have a preference or not.

You can scan other national and international tab covers along with daily broadsheets as the Newseum.

Are there new concepts and fonts?

Jason asked in a comment left on the May 16 entry:

What are some of the new concepts being thrown around?
Does such a switch bring about any particular concerns when choosing a font pallet?

The tabloid shape is probably the biggest new concept to work with.

The new page size (see the purple shaded area in the diagram to the left) is roughly 40% smaller, so art and headlines won’t have to be as large to dominate the page.
The new shape does retain the national standard advertising measures in column width so as to conform to industry standards and keep us from having to morph or adapt ads to odd widths.


We will look at packaging across the gutter.
Ad stacks to the outside of two facing pages make a much more manageable editorial “well” that can be bridged by page toppers and similar content can played as one package.

The true doubletruck in the center of the paper will create a magazine-like display area, a wonderful opportunity for features, photo packages and special reports.
It will also offer a dynamite location for a what was a full-page broadsheet advertisement.

Editors Libby Davis and Kayla Mezzell worked on prototype content with Design Director Julie Susman. Some of the new content ideas include bringing back the Purple Poll (a person-on-the-street commentary package), a student profile and little-known facts and figures about TCU and its community members.
There are also plans to aggressively pursue content generated by TCU students outside of the Skiff and the Schieffer School of Journalism.

Julie and Kayla are working on nameplate options.


They posted several for the redesign team to review during our weekly meeting.
Some are very traditional, others shall we say are quite… different!
We hope to post images of the new front pages for folks to comment on by midweek.

With time restraints and few, if any, complaints about legibility or readability from our readers, we have elected to stay with the fonts used in the broadsheet. We will be looking at adjusting the headline schedule and weights of the fonts used throughout the product.

Selecting new fonts is a huge undertaking and involves hours of reviewing and testing.
We could have easily taken up two weeks on fonts alone!

To look at a nice variety of fonts for newspapers to choose from, check out the folks at the Font Bureau.

Why redesign your newspaper?

Good question.
Why should you redesign your newspaper?
You have a product that is well-received by your community, has won awards and none of your customers complain.

So why redesign?
The answer for a college newspaper might be as simple as the turnover in student leadership from one school year to another.

In discussions we’ve had at TCU, faculty and student staff tossed out a number of reasons.

But in a conversation with newspaper advisor Robert Bohler, we narrowed the reasons down to three:

1. Switch from a broadsheet to a tabloid and make the paper more portable, easier to handle, and easier to read.

2. Create a learning experience for the staff that encompasses the redesign of the traditional broadsheet to a tabloid, the repackaging of existing coverage and creation of new features and concepts.

3. Introduce a new product in the fall where the staff will take advantage of the tabloid format, improve the way information is created and displayed and incorporate more visibility for the Schieffer School of Journalism’s convergence culture.

I have established this blog to focus on the redesign team working on the prototype of the new product.
Throughout May and June I will update their progress on a regular basis, post images and links and solicit feedback and input.
In July and August, I will create occasional posts on the overall countdown to the debut of the new Skiff.

Please leave comments or questions on this site.
Or, you can drop me an e-mail at: b.sears@tcu.edu.

Thoughts and comments on redesigning a newspaper from consultants:
Alan Jacobson, Brass Tacks Design
Ed Henninger, Henninger Consulting
Ron Reason, Ron Reason News Design