This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog post is Monday, May 2.
Red Eye, Chicago, Illinois; Designer: Sara Amato Illustration by photo editor Lenny Gilmore
The Tennessean, Nashville, Tennessee; Designer: Liz Schubauer
The Forum, Fargo, North Dakota; Graphic by artist Troy Becker; design by Alicia Strnad Hoalcraft
The Villages Daily Sun, The Villages, Florida; Designer: Grace Stamper with help from managing editor Colin Smith and AME Josh Meo
The Orange County Register, Santa Ana, California; Designer: Chris Soprych
Thanks to colleague Charles Apple, Deputy Design Director, Houston Chronicle, for keeping an eye out for these daily outbursts of creativity in print editions of newspapers everywhere. They say that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. Well, I turn to this Apple whenever I can, knowing that he has gone on some magic detective journey to find pages that deserve to be displayed.
Last week, Charles brought us several pages dealing with the NFL (National Football League) Draft, the time when teams in the United States go looking for new team members. There are also a couple of pages on different subjects also worthy of attention.
Overall, what we see in these pages, which I like so much, is art directing touches that make these newspapers highliy individualized, surprise the readers with something they have not seen on a digital platform the night before and give us another reason to believe that it is possible to do print happily and creatively. First, however, you need to have an editor who understands that this is how one surprises in print these days when news breaks on digital platforms.
I hope we continue to see this type of art direction in printed newspapers. I also believe it is more difficult to do so when newspapers are produced in a hub, in an assembly line style, where meeting the deadline and getting the paper out carry more weight than the creative process. But that is another topic for another day. And, yes, I know of hubs where creativity is possible, as it should be.
