One more critique

Michael Tribble, Design and Graphics Director of The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, was kind enough to do a thorough critique of the redesign. I'll use many of his thoughts and those of Tim and Mario troughout the semester to help us capitalize on the momentum of our new product.
Once again, I was looking for a pure critique for the prototype and he had no insight into any limitations the students had...


First impression
Outside of the cover illustration, the approach of the design is very traditional. The move from broadsheet (I haven’t seen a copy of The Skiff in 10 years) to tabloid did little to break new ground. The reinvention is seen only in the size of the product, which makes me wonder why the move was made, outside of possible cost-cutting measures. Since readers use tabloids differently than they would a broadsheet (usually punchier and more adventurous compared to stogy and traditional), you must respond by offering a product that has a completely different personality than what you offered in the broadsheet version. The team should investigate how stories were told in the broadsheet form and how they can use the new space in a more creative way. And at the very beginning point focus on how the paper not only informs and entertains, but also how it engages readers.

Critique
First off, the edition I saw had no consistent grid from page to page, or on the covers. This made the entire issue seem inconsistent and unstructured. Remember in design, grid is God. I suggest you invent a strong grid structure (both horizontally
and vertically) for all your pages and stick to it religiously. Also, the gutters between columns were a bit too wide, which gave the paper a feeling of being light and unimportant.

Your section toppers are a bit static and don’t relay much information. Seems there could be a more creative approach to these that could offer more information, save some space or give the paper more personality. The negative space offers very little relief here.

The body copy needs tighter tracking and an adjustment to the hyphenation tables. The gaps in spacing between both letters and words make the type tough to read in spots. I’d suggest looking at tightening up your leading as well. They type just seems too airy, which can make it tiring to read. This also adds to the light feeling I mentioned above.

But even though there was a feeling of lightness inside the section, the pages themselves are extremely type heavy. There was very little relief outside of the advertisements. Seems there could be a way to balance the amount of real estate spent on the size of cover art with amount of space used for art inside the section. Right now there is very little contrast. And for a student newspaper, there seemed to be very few images representative of student life (I counted the sports image and the bounty hunter shot. There were also six mug shots and one portrait).

Not a fan of the label headlines. They don’t relay a whole lot of information and because they introduce even more white space, they add to the light feeling I talked about earlier. Love, love, love the crossword and other games. Gives the readers another reason to pick you up and pass the time. You should highlight that more as a selling point.

I like the creativity of the main illustration. But in general, the covers seem to be a bit disorganized. As far as your use of typography, I’d stick with a simple style of headline, make them all centered or flush-left (preferred) and don’t change weights and color to grab attention. Pick one treatment and go strong with it. And even wide-open canvases like these covers can benefit from a tightly followed grid. Break the page into a grid vertically and horizontally and make your illustrations, headlines and copy blocks work within it. It’ll make for much cleaner pages.

Also, if the paper’s philosophy is to “sell” one big story on the covers, I’d suggest giving the secondary elements more pop. Right now the elements are almost too secondary. If readers don’t care for the main story tease, then there’s not much excitement there to get them to see if there’s something inside worth their time. And I’m not sure why you have these both at the top and at the bottom. There’s probably a better solution here to get them in the same space since they do the same job.

Overall
The paper has a good, basic organization, but is in need some sizzle. There are too many other outlets competing for eyeballs to remain traditional in structure and storytelling. This is your chance to blow the doors off. Newspapers are about ideas and keeping you audience’s attention means publishing good ideas. After graduation, members of your staff will rarely get the type of opportunity you have now to be smart, innovate and challenge yourselves. And above all else, this should be the most fun you’ll ever have making a newspaper. Planning is the key.