Last Updated: February 03, 2000
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Explaining ourselves
By explaining x-height, white space and other design
vagaries in language people understand - the Sun Sentinel answered the
old 'use bigger type' complaint
Each issue of The American Editor is reprinting examples of columns
by members who use them to speak to the newspaper's readers. Some set out
policies, some explain news decision, some introduce new ventures; all
help establish communication between the institution and its readers.
We welcome your nominations. Send them to Joe Distelheim, The Huntsville
Times, P.O. Box 1487, Huntsville AL 35801 or joed@htimes.com.
Q. Why not accommodate your readers with larger, darker print to
enable people with impaired vision to read your newspaper?
- Bertha Krisoff, Boca Raton
A. In more than 18 years as an editor in South Florida, I've been asked
this question more frequently than any other.
I am delighted to announce today that we have launched a new design
that incorporates larger, easier-to-read type in all our sections, along
with several other improvements that will make the Sun-Sentinel an even
more reader-friendly newspaper.
To make the newspaper more readable, it takes more than just a larger
type size.
Our creative director, Jeff Glick, who headed our redesign effort, explains
that there is a difference between legibility and readability.
"In a telephone book, the priority is on legibility. I just want to
find what I am looking for quickly and easily," he said. "In a book or
novel, however, we want the perception of mass, or texture, in which the
reader's eye isn't aware of the letter forms, but of the thoughts conveyed."
What we attempted to do in the redesign is combine the best of both.
When the material is presented in such a way that the typeface becomes
invisible while we focus on the message, we know we've been successful.
We spent months finding just the right type, creating appropriate spacing
to make words and sentences stand out, and making other improvements to
the page as a whole.
One of the most noticeable improvements is in our weather page. We have
moved it to the back of the Local section, where it will be anchored every
day, and added color to make it easier to read and understand.
We've also changed the way we do "jumps" - the continuation of a story
from the front of a section to the inside. The inside portion will carry
a full headline, as well as an eye-catching "jump head" to make it easier
to locate the continued text. We will attempt to cluster all of our "continued"
text to a single page, making them easier to find.
We moved our popular Bulletin Board from Page 2 to Page 4 in the Local
section, and expanded it so we can include more items of interest.
With those exceptions, you will find all the other features and sections
you have become accustomed to in the same places.
"Our goal of this redesign was to minimize the shock of change on our
readers," Glick said. "To do this, we chose to enhance our already successful
look by creating character and sophistication without creating a totally
new design. Evolution instead of revolution."
Our new design has been in the works for more than a year. In fact,
after several meetings with our readers and the creation of several prototypes,
we began publishing a redesigned Food section last September to test the
results. This gave us an opportunity to solicit reader feedback to new
typefaces, headlines and design elements, without impacting the overall
newspaper until we were ready to launch the improvements.
Last month, we entered the second phase of our redesign by publishing
Health & Family, Travel, Arts & Leisure, Business & Technology
and Outlook sections with the new design elements.
Today we debut the final phase by adding our A section, Local and Sports
sections.
All of these improvements were done, with sensitivity to the attitudes
of our readers, who have a strong feeling about their newspaper and don't
want changes unless there are good reasons.
Maucker is editor of the Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and
co-chairs The American Editor Committee.
We spent months finding just the right type, ... and making other
improvements to the page as a whole.
