Monthly Archives: July 2023

Is this the worst Front Page of all time?

by

Hint: The answer is not “No.”

My original post asked, Is this the worst design of the day? But then I saw the byline and the editor’s note:

THIS IS A PRESS RELEASE FROM THE BLM!! Doesn’t the Sentinel have an op-ed page anymore? I’m guessing not. Even a “guest editorial“ on the editorial page would have been better than this.

It’s almost as if there was some sort of court judgement against my former newspaper where they were ordered to run a front page retraction to atone fora wrong doing. However, even in a case like that I’m sure they would have made note that the article/placement was part of a litigation settlement.

Now we return back to bad design.

As someone who put in hundreds of hours designing front pages at the Sentinel, I can 100% say, yes. This is truly awful. Here’s why:

  • Way too much grey space.
  • No pullquote(s) to break up those long, long rows of type.
  • No boldface on the list headers
  • The story jumps to page 3?! Wow! Really? Jumps are normally on the back of the section. Is this a four-page section?