The 818 Now

An aspects of the papers’ redesign I was most excited about are the skyboxes, the areas above the masthead that are basically Editorial’s advert for what’s inside. When I worked on the newspaper Wales on Sunday, cutouts were encouraged and we would generally put them, to use a British phrase, all over the shop.

Cutouts are something new to us at the Glendale News-Press, Burbank Leader and La Cañada Valley Sun, although our colleagues in Orange County have used them for a while.

So it’s taken me a bit of time to get back into the swing of doing them, and one thing I forgot from those rainy days in Cardiff is the golden rule: Don’t cut out people with long, frizzy, messy or just generally all-over-the-place hair.

Which is sort of hard when the best  photo for the skybox is of, say, girls playing soccer. Or basketball. Or tennis. Or other sports where hair’s in the air.

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the pen tool in Photoshop is no match for errant strands, blurry ponytails, tangled tresses and messed-up ‘dos. So I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone out there who appears in the skybox with slightly mangled locks.

And don’t even get me started on trying to cut out water polo players.

Glendale News-Press, 1952

I had to dig this paper out of my closet to find out its publication date – December 23 1952. And what a headline, although surely the best part of the story is the fact that school official didn’t think the damage would cost more than $10,000. The blast happened at 1.45am and thankfully there were no deaths or injuries. Interestingly there’s no byline on the story, a strange omission considering its importance.

Unfortunately for RD White students the damage wasn’t bad enough to extend their Christmas holiday. A cute little brief is worth repeating in whole:

HOPE FOR EXTRA VACATION DASHED

The telephone rang in the city room of the News-Press this morning. A 6-year old girl asked:

“Are the kids getting an extra long Christmas vacation because of the explosion?”

A reporter said school authorities hoped to have classes open on schedule[...]

“Oh shoot,” the sweet young thing said. Then she added: “Thanks a lot,” and hung up.

We don’t get many six-year-olds calling the newsroom nowadays. Reading that, I sort of wish we did.

Further down the front is a story that proves nothing really changes: “Visitor, Hit By Car, Killed In Glendale” tells of a 72-year-old who was run over while crossing Orange at California. I suppose we can give the driver credit for not immediately driving off.

Below the fold is publisher Carrol W. Parcher’s column, The Publisher’s Corner, in which he endorses Thomas H. Kuchel to the post of US Senator from California and also mentions some chap by the name of Dick Nixon. Wonder if he ever went on to become famous?

This particular edition of the paper is in better condition than the others, meaning I can open the pages without it falling apart. On page 2 there’s a story about the groundbreaking for Glendale’s National Guard Armoury and on page 6 there’s Glendale Glances by Glenna Dale, a precursor of our current society column On The Town.

Another great advantage to being able to open the pages is that I can see the adverts. It must be said that 1952′s News-Press had less ads than 2009′s… not that I’m complaining as it’s ad revenue that keeps me in a job. But if you wanted a pair of slippers for $2.95, or get your car undercoated for $21, or a bottle of Santa Fe California sherry for 58 cents, then 1952 was the year for you.

Finally, the design. And it’s a case of another decade, another masthead, this one at its rightful place on top of the page. I actually like this topper; it’s clean, bold and classy. I’m assuming the building behind it is the News-Press office, then at 111 North Isabel. A copy would knock you back the princely sum of one nickel.

The pages are still crammed with stories (an amazing 17 on the cover; my record’s seven) and very little art save a couple of mugshots and a pic of the school wreckage. Modern design is all about guiding the reader around the page by use of elements such as bold headlines, photos, colour tints and so on; in the 30s-50s there was much more of a “throw it at the page and see what fits” ethos. And when you’re working with scissors, pots of glue and a looming deadline I can see how that would be best.

Next time: Back to World War II, only this time with the Glendale Star.

Glendale News-Press, 1936

OK, so I made a bit of a faux-pas: I called my dad and asked him what he could remember about the Abdication.

“The what?”

“The Abdication. You know, Edward VIII in 1936.”

There is a pause. “How bloody old do you think I am?”

“Er… I have to go, the cats are on fire.”

With that behind me (dad was born in 1938) here’s another old News-Press. Hard to think why the abdication of a foreign monarch would be front-page news in what is a community newspaper, but the Constiutional Crisis was headline news all across the globe and especially in what was then our Empire (not that it included Glendale, of course). It’s another AP story so I’m assuming the regular reporters were all across the road in the pub while the poor comps had to glue the paper together.

I know it’s a huge story but let’s face it, two lines of all-caps headline with three lines of all-caps keydeck and another three-line sub-deck is a bit much. I don’t think the paper I worked for in Britain had that much when Princess Diana died. And “PREPARES TO FLEE COUNTRY” is a bit harsh, although not entirely unfair as he was packed off to Bermuda during World War II for his alleged Nazi sympathies.

Nice to see the primitive skybox in 1936; that’s the bit about bus fares that’s running across the top of the page. We’re bringing that back with the redesign, although ours will be a bit heavier on the colour and graphics. But I am a bit lost as to its purpose, as the skybox is supposed to plug an inside story such as sports or entertainment and this one doesn’t have any page refer. Also, why does it say “Six Months’ Trial Of City-Wide 5-Cent Bus Fare Ordered” when a couple of inches below is a story headlined “Reduced Fares On Buses To Be Tested”. Unless they’re the same story, but that would be odd to say the least.

And the masthead – we’ve travelled back from the ’40s brush script to Gothic, a style I’ve never liked. I can’t say I’m a fan of this one. It doesn’t have much of a presence on the page and is swamped by the mass of type around it. Maybe if they’d done it white on black it might stand out, but as it is it’s just lost.

Next up: The RD White explosion.

Warner Bros. Studios on a 1955 postcard. Are those fields in the foreground and in the upper left?? And what’s that long pink strip? If anyone knows, feel free to comment.

Many moons ago when the News-Press moved offices from the corner of Brand and Wilson to its current location, someone discovered a pile of papers dating from the 1930s, 40s and 50s hiding behind a filing cabinet. They were destined for the bin until I stepped in to save them. As a historical record they’re interesting, but it’s fascinating just to look at them and see what page design of 60 years ago was like.

Here’s one from 1942:

Glendale News-Press, 1942

Now that is a headline. I originally read it completely wrong – “coed” (pronounced “coyd”) is Welsh for “wood” so I ended up trying to understand what “Glendale man slays wood” was supposed to mean. Duh. Let’s face it, with that headline screaming at you you’re going to pick this paper up. And the headline above the masthead? Interesting, as is the masthead itself; I can almost get over the 1940s brush-type font, but why does it only go two-thirds of the way across the page? I believe this is one of those “hey, if we leave space we can run stories across the top of the page” ideas, which is a great until your best story is something along the lines of  “Council OKs street ordinance”.

Apart from that attention-grabbing headline, it’s amazing how many stories they’ve managed to cram onto the front – and this is just the top half of the page. I try to get as many headlines above the fold as possible to appeal to readers and show off what we have, but this page has seven, which is more stories than we run on the whole of A1. Then again, “cram” is the right word; I get the impression that white space was frowned upon in the forties.

Interestingly (well, to me anyway), if you look at the Ds in that headline they’re slightly shorter than the other letters. This was the day of hot metal, an era I missed by several years and which fills me with a sense of awe as to how papers were produced when you couldn’t just press ctrl-k and start again. The idea of doing, say, the Glendale city election edition with nothing more than a pair of scissors, a pot of Elmer’s glue and a pica pole (whatever that is) terrifies me.

The other thing that caught my eye is the sheer volume of non-Glendale news on the cover. Five Second World War stories compete with the dead coed for cover space. I’m assuming the war stories come from the Associated Press, which is a huge difference from today – all our stories are home-grown, something we’re very proud of. But with most of the front filled with wire stories, I wonder what the reporters did. Was there a pub across the road from the office in those days?

Oh, and it’s what isn’t on this page that stands out. No web address in the seal (the strip below the masthead); instead there’s the statement “Glendale is the Third Largest City in Los Angeles County”. Which, after 67 years, it still is. No email addresses, no charts, no Twitter or blog links, index, weather forecast and, most of all, no colour. In fact it took me a while to consciously realise that it’s monochrome; colour was still decades away.

But while I might get to write a headline like “GLENDALE MAN SLAYS COED”, I know I’ll never have to write “Nazis roll in Caucasus”. Which is a good thing.

Next up: 1936 and the Abdication.

Station fire from Long Beach Harbour (Matthew Wilkes)

I’m a five-year Long Beach resident and took my first trip out on the water today. But the Queen Mary, oil islands, tankers, yachts and wildlife took a back seat to the huge plume of smoke towering over downtown Long Beach from 40 miles away. Incredible.

Smoke from station fire over Long Beach (Matthew Wilkes)

From the Glendale News-Press

GLENDALE — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday nullified a state law that allowed descendants of Armenians killed in the Turkish Ottoman Empire to request payment on the life-insurance policies of relatives.

The federal appeals court said in its 2-1 ruling that the law amounted to unconstitutional interfering in U.S. foreign policy.

The decision was based on a 2003 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that struck down a state law designed to assist Holocaust survivors collect on World War II-era insurance policies.

Three times Congress has considered resolutions in the last decade that would have provided recognition of the genocide. But the White House has urged each time that the bills be foiled, fearing that their passage would damage relations with Turkey, whose government denies that a genocide took place.

Full story here.

Former councilman is named as rape suspect
By Mary O’Keefe
Andrew Adelman, a former Crescenta Valley Town Council member who was honored at the council’s July 16 meeting, is being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department after being accused of raping a woman July 10.

Firefighter eager to return to duty after his injuries
By Veronica Rocha
SHERMAN OAKS — Recovery hasn’t been easy for Glendale Firefighter Patrick Hambarchian, who suffered third-degree burns on 20% of his body while battling an Aug. 3 house fire. But, he said, it could have been worse.

Bell makes big league debut
ANAHEIM — Focused straight ahead, Trevor Bell skipped over the third-base line and into Major League Baseball.

Grateful to be back home
BURBANK — Two American journalists made an emotional return to American soil at Bob Hope Airport Wednesday morning after former President Bill Clinton secured their freedom in a rescue mission to communist North Korea.

Officials: Hillside blaze is nearly 100% contained
By Veronica Rocha
NORTHEAST GLENDALE — A blaze that consumed 60 acres of brushy hillside along Glendale-Eagle Rock border was nearly 100% contained within the original fire zone Wednesday afternoon as crews worked throughout the day to put out hot spots near homes, officials said.

Council: Extend firm’s contract
By Melanie Hicken
CITY HALL — Congressional lawmakers may be in the process of doling out millions in federal funds, but without a lobbyist for more than a month now, Glendale may lose out in the annual round of appropriations, some city officials say.

CV High tagged by vandals again
By Mary O’Keefe
LA CRESCENTA — For the second time in less then four months, a building under construction at Crescenta Valley High School has been vandalized, causing thousands of dollars in damage, officials said.

Local camp not just for kicks
By Gabriel Rizk
NORTHEAST GLENDALE — The youth soccer camp currently being conducted by Crescenta Valley High girls’ soccer Coach Reggie Rivas is no summer vacation.

Vaqs get second crack at schedule
GLENDALE – All 10 regular-season matchups remain the same for the Glendale Community College football team in 2009, with locations being the only departure from the previous season’s schedule.

Wow…  I really have to manage my time better. But the redesign’s coming along; two prototype fronts are done, another is 2/3 done and I’ve completed a couple of inside pages. All use the Antenna font (we have a testing license now which runs until October) and it looks even better on the page than I’d hoped. Tomorrow — or, to be more precise, later today — I have to present my designs to the editors. Should be interesting…

Here’s a hint: If you’re working from home, but have to come back  into the office one day a week, don’t make jokes along the lines of, “Three o’clock? Time for my nap!” Your co-workers might take it the wrong way.

I am now having dreams about the redesign. I wake up wondering if that dark tan colour is really going to work. Or should I stick to dark red? Last night I got out of bed at 3am to check if the yellow I used on a skybox was too light. Is Antenna Thin too thin? For that matter, is Antenna Condensed too condensed? Is -5pt tracking enough? And why do the bloody cats start fighting just as I’m about to do something fiddly to the infoboxes?

I need to get out more.

I started working in newspapers in the UK in 1996 at the tender age of 24. I began at a company in South Wales as a sub-editor, or copy-editor as they’re called here in the States, and after a year on the subs’ desk I moved to design. The papers I worked for were (and still are) tabloids, and I quickly came to love tabloid design – the use of colour, the bold and brash headlines, big photos, cutouts, puns – it was fun, fun to design and fun to look at. Our front pages stood out when compared to the staid broadsheets, something I was proud of.

From there I moved to another tabloid (and by “move” I mean I shifted about 30 feet from my old desk – the papers were owned by the same company and based in the same building) where the design was even more fun. Led by an incredibly talented art director, we used more colours and more cutouts and more page furniture.  Better yet, we had more interesting stories and features which inspired us to do them justice by making the paper scream “READ ME!” at people. Oh, and pun headlines. Lots and lots of pun headlines.

I turned into quite a design snob. Broadsheets were stuffy, boring and dull, serif fonts were for old people, and if you didn’t have at least three cutouts per page then you didn’t know what you were doing.

In 2004 I moved to America and discovered the word “tabloid” fills the average American journalist with horror. “Tabloid” in the States conjours up images of the Weekly World News, or The National Enquirer, or any other number of trashy magazines and “newspapers”*. I tried explaining that there’s a world of difference between tabloid content and tabloid design but I don’t think I got anywhere.

After getting a job at TCN I quickly had to unlearn a lot of stuff and get my head around designing what I’d believed for eight years to be the antithesis of page layout and design, and in the process I discovered something. Broadsheet design isn’t that bad. The challenge changed from making the papers appealing by having huge headlines, photos, cutouts and colours to making them appealing by not having huge headlines, photos, cutouts and colours. My design philosophy changed from one of “make it look like an explosion in a darkroom” to “make it look clean, classy, and above all, quality”.

Now I know what you’re thinking: you’re thinking, “What is this Limey on about?” I suppose what I’m trying to say is that during the first week or so of redesigning the News-Press I’ve realised that not only has my design philosophy changed, so has my desire to make the paper as brash as I once wanted to. I don’t think that design would work in America, and certainly not on a major metropolitan paper, and even if it did I wouldn’t want to do it. So no matter what Glendale’s paper ends up looking like, rest assured it will do a fine job of representing the Jewel City.

* The Star is probably the best example of what a trashy UK tabloid is like. All major British newspapers are now tabloids, not because they all suddenly lost IQ points but because the smaller size is a lot easier to read on public transport.

One of the small problems with trying to do a redesign from home is the font issue. Although I have about 750 fonts installed on my PC, I think about 700 of them are of the comic/dingbat/horror/distorted kind which are useless for a newspaper. So at the moment I’m having to do virtually all headlines in fairly standard typefaces such as Adobe Caslon, Franklin Gothic, Rockwell and even – God forgive me – Times.

I have been checking out papers from around the world at Newseum, an online repository of front pages from all over the world. One typeface that caught my eye is Antenna, which is used by the San Antonio Express-News for their art packages (the story with the big photo). It’s a very clean, very modern Swiss-style sans font (in other words it doesn’t have the little serifs, the bits that stick out of the ends of the letters – or, as Wikipedia puts it, “serifs are semi-structural details on the ends of some of the strokes that make up letters and symbols“) from a foundry called Font Bureau. If I was able to use it I’d want it to become our font for all headlines and keydecks as it would signal a complete break with the old look of the paper.

It’s with this font in mind that I’m redesigning the paper. If the headlines are going to have a clean, modern look then the page layouts, use of photos, colours and page furniture such as polls, bugs and infoboxes will have to match.

I’m Matt, the guy who designs the News-Press and Leader. We’ve decided the papers need a new, fresh look and so I’ve been tasked with coming up with a modern, clean design for our TCN North titles. Everything from the masthead down is going to be redone to not only improve the layout and readers’ experience, but also to allow us to integrate our printed product with our websites. This blog will be a running commentary of my experiences doing the redesign. As I’ve never done one before (a redesign, that is) it’ll be as interesting an experience for me as I hope it will be for you. I’m lucky enough to be allowed to work from home for the duration of this project so there will doubtless be references to coffee, dinner, cats and TV in my posts. And if you notice any funny spellings, it’s because I’m the token Brit.