Newspaper Layout and design Lecture Note 1

DEPARTMENT OF MASS COMMUNICATION,

BAYERO UNIVERSITY, KANO

2013/2014 NEWSPAPER EDITING, LAYOUT AND DESIGN

LECTURE NOTE 1

Introduction

Understanding the principles of Editing, Layout and design is critical in being able to present news and features, editorials, adverts etc in an attractive way. This course, editing, layout and design for print media is design to equip the students with a solid grounding on the basics of Editing, Design, and how text works with pictures - enabling you to create attractive pages on your screen.

There are more than 6580 newspapers in the world and each has or is supposed to have a distinct feature that is peculiar to it, or which make it completely different from others.

WHAT IS A NEWSPAPER?

A newspaper is a publication that is issued daily or weekly and includes local and international 
news stories, advertisements, announcements, opinions, cartoons, sports news and television 
listings. It is an important method of letting the public know everything that is happening in their 
local area and around the world. Even with the advancements in computer technology, 
newspapers continue to be an important aspect of everyday life. 
It is important to know the sections of the newspaper and what information each one contains. 
The front page has the most important stories of the day. Each story has its own "headline" and a 
"by-line" giving the name of the reporter who wrote the story. Every newspaper story has to 
answer the following questions: 
5Ws and H

•  Who? - who is the story about? 
•  What? - what is the story about? 
•  Where? - where does the story take place? 
•  When? - when does the story take place? 
•  Why? - why is this happening? (This is not always possible to answer) 
•  How? - how this story happened. 

TABLOIDS VS BROADSHEETS

The tabloid Newspaper: the tabloid newspaper is usually half the size of a broadsheet (also called blanket) and it has between 12 to up 70 pages, normally has between 4 to 6 columns, usually carry pictures in their front pages accompanied by one or two big bold headlines, 2 or more artworks. It is very typical to have a tabloid front page without any body type.

The selection of news items in tabloids is usually cantered around crime, sex, violence, politics etc which are put in short crisp manner and often sensationally displayed. The major aim or purpose of news placement in tabloids is to entertain and shock the readers.

On the back pages of tabloids are often news items/pictures of sporting events, but there may be some exceptions. The headlines in the tabloids in the past usually followed a traditional all caps (capital letters) instead of what we are seeing today-the modern contemporary upper/lower case system.

Broadsheet Newspaper: this is a fairly a recent development which is based on the improvement of tabloids. Broadsheet is normally twice the size of a tabloid and usually comes in 8 columns. Broadsheets carry fewer pictures and artworks and their stories are normally lengthy and very serious. Broadsheet usually uses the contemporary upper/lower case style.

A very simple way to identify or differentiate broadsheet from tabloid is take the opposite of those characteristics of the tabloid mentioned earlier. Generally broadsheets are more prominent in the advanced western countries.

In a nutshell, broadsheets are usually 23.5 by 15 inches, generally associated with more serious and intellectual news items while tabloids on the other hand are half the size of broadsheets (15 by 11⅜) often regarded as sensationalist in orientation.

The pertinent question that this course will answer is, what makes a newspaper different from other newspapers?

Ø  Is it the type of news, features, articles or adverts it carries?

Ø  Is it its layout pattern?

Ø  Is it its style of design?

Ø  Is it a combination of all the above?

The best way to tackle these questions is to select ten (10) different Newspapers and compare all the above items. I am sure the way you will notice differences is in their various layouts and designs but not in the news items themselves.

Thus, we can safely conclude that layout and designs are the two items that gives a newspaper its distinct identity which readers readily identify it with and which has a major impact in attracting people to even like, buy and read the paper.

Thus in this section, we will first discuss newspaper Layout, its importance, categories, types and the different layout formulas and then talk on Newspaper design, its development, importance, basic principles etc

WHAT IS A NEWSPAPER LAYOUT?

Layout can be regarded as the general practice of arranging all those elements that together make a page. It also mean the basic steps taken in producing a desired a newspaper so as to meet the expectations of targeted audiences.

Those elements that together make a page are: news, photographs, cartoons, by-lines, headlines, whitespace, illustrations, adverts and inserts.

Systematic arrangements of the above, all or some of them on a page or sequence of pages by the layout editor is what is referred to a layout.

CATEGORIES OF NEWSPAPER LAYOUT

Newspaper layout is basically categorized into two: Static layout and Dynamic layout.

Static layout: this type of layout has a fixed pattern of arranging the headlines, artworks, whitespace and picture placement, the only responsibility of the layout editor is to pour the news items into the mould each day. It is generally considered as a non functional layout because the layout pattern is always the same.

Dynamic Layout: this type of layout on the other hand refers to the arrangements of news items in response to what has to be communicated. It is generally regarded as functional layout because the layout editor has to wait for the news to determine the pattern of layout to use.

However, all the two categories discussed above have their merits and demerits:

ADVANTAGES OF STATIC LAYOUT

Ø  It is easy to make

Ø  Saves time and energy

Ø  Gives a newspaper a known identity

Ø  It help the different editors in assigning beats

DISADVANTAGES OF STATIC LAYOUT

Ø  It shouts in the same tones everyday

Ø  It is not flexible- it has fixed pattern and if a story breaks the editor has to do lots of work

Ø  It lacks political balance as it is difficult to give 2 sides equal prominence

Ø  Corruption of picture journalism

Ø  Limiting the possibilities of clear expression in the most befitting selection of words and display of headlines.

ADVANTAGES OF DYNAMIC LAYOUT

Ø  It is flexible

Ø  It keep the layout editor abreast of recent development in newspaper layout world

Ø  It always respond to the changing news

Ø  It offers exquisite political balance

Ø  It provides the possibilities  of clear expression

DISADVANTAGES OF DYNAMIC LAYOUT

Ø  It is very difficult and time consuming

Ø  It is very costly