“What are the ways to make Page One attractive on a dull day?”

Dr. Mario Garcia

Dull day front page?Find the most interesting photos from the inside, group them.Find the most interesting two or three human interest stories from inside: bring them to the front. Put an extra candy in the box: make it sweet.

Peter Ong

You cannot make a nice page without good content! You need great photos, great graphics, great stories. Nothing can replace content, not even the best design in the world!

Charles Apple

A good visual editor always has something in his back pocket for a slow news day. One great way to deal with this is to have a strong general-interest feature story ready to move out onto A1 if necessary. Normally, that’s something that U.S. papers do on Sundays, but, in fact, there’s nothing at all wrong with running a feature story out front during the week. Nor is it a problem to run an illustration with that front-page story. The time-honoured way to deal with this, however, is the concept of “wild art.” That’s the practice of shooting a photo, unrelated to anything else on page one and putting it out there by itself. Perhaps it refers to something on another page inside, and perhaps not. Either way, it can be a great way to show folks enjoying sunshine after a rainy week. Or some sort of festival. Or simply kids playing with a dog in the park. I saw a lot of “wild art” during the Winter Olympics, a few weeks ago. A number of papers simply put a large Olympics photo out front and then referred to their stories in the sports section. As long as the front page photo doesn’t duplicate the sports front, I think this works fine. U.S. papers are doing the same thing right now with college basketball presentations. Both of these solutions through — a front-page feature story or “wild art” — have constraints of their own. The “wild” photo has to be fresh — shot that day. The feature, too, must be current and relevant — meaning you can’t write a story for this purpose and then put it aside for weeks. If your readers get a sense that you’ve led page one of the old or canned material, then they’ll respect you less for it.

Miguel Gomez

1. 1. Look for invisible stories. During the morning editorial meeting, review last three days news coverage and scratch to find stories behind the story, human interest angles, why things happened, the relation between the story and other subjects, is easy to become blind to things that are always there.
   2. Think of new ways to present a boring story. Why follow the headline, text, picture structure? – Try to present a story using only figures, take a big number and transform it into something recognizable $25,000,000.00 = the minimum salary of a typical family for 3500 years. – Go visual. Take the same comparison and represent it visually as an infographic. – Type attack. Create a strong short headline and use it big (I mean really big) in three lines with an intro and maybe a small picture. – Use quotes. Instead of the headline, put a strong quote using big type, or take three quotes of the story and have them with different pictures of the subject.
   3. Look for an amazing picture and run it big, this can be a stand-alone image or a promo for an inside story, usually, news agencies provide lots of this.

The main thing is that you must consider these days as an opportunity and not as a problem, is a chance to have fun and use space in a creative way.

Ron Reason

Worldwide, the dilemma of “what to do on a slow news day?” has vexed editors and designers. But with such a challenge often comes imagination, and some of the best pages often turn up when there is no “real art” of the day – no stunning local or wire photograph, no obvious large headline for breaking news, no illustration or graphic based on the news, perhaps “just a mug shot.” Often it is the feature stories or “off the news” items (a report or survey being released, or another less urgent issue) that inspires a creative solution. Often, creative typography and white space come to the rescue. Take a look at how a modestly staffed college newspaper rises to the challenge with a handful of inspiring pages that were done when they had “no art.” Surprise, surprise – these pages are among the staff’s – and my – favourites! ……More on

http://ronreason.com/designwithreason/2010/03/29/how-to-make-someth…

Lucie Lacava

There is no such thing as a slow news day. Somewhere in the world, in the country, or in a suburban backyard, there is a story worth reporting and getting excited about on the Front page, whether it be politics, human interest, sport, or culture. The page can lead with a big headline, a big picture, or ideally, a combination of both. Every newspaper should have a mission statement or a formula for what type of stories should lead on the Front, but on a slow news day, it would be great to surprise the readers with an unexpected twist. Viewing today’s front pages online from all over the world, I see a lot of small headlines, and one column photos above the fold. These are missed opportunities to grab the attention of the reader with a strong visual element. Front page editors should bank stories that are not time sensitive, and play them when the big story does not materialize. If there are strict rules about the front page story selection, then play up a reference to an inside story in a big way. There are two layers of dullness, one is the visual aspect the other is at the content level. Rewrite the headlines, or rewrite the stories but content should never be dull. And, if you must look like the Wall Street Journal, then make sure you have that one story at the bottom of the page that everybody in the office will talk about around the espresso machine. If we as insiders think there is nothing worth reading on the Front page then why should the readers bother buying our paper? Here’s a list of things you can do to avoid a dull news day:

• Lead with an unexpected story.
• Lead with a stand-alone newsworthy photo which is an attention grabber.
• Lead with your best photo from an inside section as a pointer to that story.
• Lead with a story that is not time sensitive you pulled from your bank.
• Rewrite the headlines.
• Rewrite the story.
• Add visual data such as a graphic or map.
• Use somewhere on the page a short, smart and unconventional, or funny story everyone will be talking about.
• Use the wire service to find interesting photos or stories from outside your region.
• The possibilities, once you start thinking creatively, are endless.

Douglas Okasaki

The front page is a very important space, so use it well and pay special attention to what you are doing. The decision-making process should begin quite early – don’t leave it until the last minute.

1. 1. – The news is no longer what people are looking for in a newspaper. Go local. Section editors need to invest in advanced features that can be used anytime during the week. This is something that you can think about in advance.
   2. – In the first meeting, select two interesting subjects that you can invest time in looking for news. An infographic can also be used as a visual element on the front page.
   3. – Train your photographers well. Sometimes you can lose a great opportunity because of the poor quality of photos. Good photographers can make a great image from a simple subject.
   4. – Be flexible and allow your front page to work with different graphic elements and layout options.
   5. – Ask your design staff to help. They are very creative and talented; they can come up with a graphic design solution.