In late 2004 the Emerald was in the process of negotiating for daily
4-color fronts and when Editor in chief-elect Jen Sudick and I looked
at the condition of our paper's design we felt it needed some serious
revision. The biggest change would be to the nameplate, which was
actually a vertically-streatched bastardization of an earlier
nameplate. Although it made use of our trademark "Duck Green" spot
color, the bland and dated design said nothing visually about the
paper's century of continuous publishing and the tradition of
excellence. Though some gothic-style throwback nameplates (actually
very historically accurate) were considered, we settled on a beveled
modern serif font. Though this was originally run in back and white
because of the low resolution of our color press at the time, it has
since reverted to a green hue.
The other changes included moving to centered headlines, using a serif
summary text and reducing the use of boxed centerpieces. We also
discarded the teaser/weather/TOC bar at the bottom which consumed
valuable front page space with under-used features, and moved the
teaser to the top of the page. An emphasis was placed on vertical
columns and vertical images with the goal of making our tabloid-size
look more vertical and much more classic.
Throughout the last year we made tweaks, and this year when the
Emerald moved to a higher-resolution UV ink print process we continued
to slim down the look. As we soon discovered, the vastly crisper text
meant it took less to create the visual separations readers need. This
included replacing thick-thin double horizontal divide line with the
more elegant single-thick, and removing frames from tinted information
boxes. - Steven R. Neuman 2004-2005 Managing editor 2005-2006 Online editor and Supplements editor
