There's been quite a few examples of bad design posted, so I decided to search out an example of (by my estimation) excellent design, and I found this front page for The Press Democrat that really impressed me.

The entire front page of this Oct. 26 edition is dedicated to the California fires. There's a really powerful vertical column of photos, all of which are excellent choices. The flag is placed over the top most photograph, and the headline appears below, dividing the first and second photograph. It could easily be confused for the flag, but the content of the page is so unified that it all comes together very strongly.

There's also some statistics placed over the headline which worked very well to deliver the information quickly in the location the most draws the eye's attention. At the very bottom of the page is also and infographic that chronologically follows the path of the California fires. On either side, the stories chosen represent the different people involved in the fires, as well as the news of the actual fire. There's a story about the firefighters involved, and another about a family who narrowly survived the fire. The application of the photos bleeds between the different stories.

This page grabbed me in a way that a lot of others did not. Would you agree? Are there pages that have affected you the same way?

I stumbled upon this Scottsdale Tribune front page while browsing Newseum's Today's Front Pages. The extremely large photograph they chose for the front page reminded me of one of the choices we had for our feature stories assignment. I didn't find either photo to be particularly compelling, especially given the size they chose for this one. The repetition in the photo is nice, and the children certainly seem riveted to their screen, but all one really gets to see is their backs.

I began browsing around Newseum and found a lot of similar pictures of children making the front page. I couldn't help but feel like these were fall back stories, possibly even ones they had in reserve for slow news days. Is a lack of content leading to these boring center pieces? I'm guessing it must either be that or the smaller distribution of these publications. I can't, after all, make the same claims about the larger papers, just the Scottsdale Tribune (above), the Norwich Bulletin, and the South Bend Tribune (below).