Whether newspapers will keep shrinking or disappear altogether, the hot topic is in their design. To become familiar with the evolution of design, it is important to study how it has changed over time. The growth of design has not solely grown because of the increasing technology, but more so out of desperation to become more appealing to its readers. Since the beginning of time, journalists and newspapers have both had to challenge the battle of being outdated. I read in an article in my new media class that newspapers are the poster child for the dead media movement. However, media is not dead. And neither are newspapers--yet.
Although newspapers from the past, such as the Baltimore American above, appear humdrum and text heavy, this kind of information appealed to the readers of that time. As the eras passed, information become less about the information and more about the captivation. We live in a generation that is flourishing with information, flashing with art and filled with medium outlets. Why all the color? Why the extremely large photos? Why the graphs? Since when did the text become the newspaper entity that got pushed to the back of the page?
Two obvious reasons it became this way has to do with the growth of technological capabilities and the rise in the liberal population. Newspapers have become less of an informative document and more of a crystal ball of our whole world. Marshall McLuhan stated that if you removed the dateline from a paper it would read as an "exotic and fascinating surrealist poem."
Nancy Chunn, an American artist, studied the endless aesthetic possibilities of the front page of a newspaper and the power it holds. She said, "The thing I love about the Times is the variety of stuff that appears on the front page. If you read the paper from cover to cover, it's a daily map of the world; the front page is a map of what's important that day--or the day before, actually. And that's saying a lot. It's not only economics, it's not only politics, it's not only sports. You get the world, you get the nation, you get the local, you get the extraterrestrial." That is a lot of pressure for a designer. I know it kind of intimidates me because I am new to this. Designing the front page of a newspaper is so much more difficult than designing a web page. I feel like once you become proficient in newspaper design then web design would be a synch. I say this because in web design, you don't really have to prioritize the most important events of the world. Referring back to McLuhan and Chunn's statement, web pages do not have to be in like a poem or a road map. Web page designs are interactive and let the reader choose where they want to go through links and such, whereas newspaper design is a guide and readers must follow the cues. A newspaper is a narrative, a story if you will, of our world. I guess my point is referring back to the conversation we had in lab the other day when many people said that the newspaper major should be ceded out of Grady all together. It took me awhile to agree with this, but I think I do. However, I would hope that newspaper design remains a class because the skill it takes to design a newspaper is the hardest type of design there is. Since the beginning of print, newspapers have guided our nation with world news before we could even guide ourselves. That is skill that should never go untaught for a journalist. This is a cool link to see all the front page newspapers from today.
I also recommend looking up Nancy Chunn and her views on the aesthetic appeal of newspapers. It is really interesting stuff. She would sketch on newspapers and what she took from them.
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