Front Page Friday: Eye-catching art

It is that time of the week again. It is time to look at my favorite newspaper front page of the week.

As always, I culled through the front pages shown at Newseum.org and picked my favorite.

This week is a little different, though. I’m not just going to talk about one front page. I’m going to focus on three because of the eye-catching art they used.

So here they are:

Chicago Hoy

The Chicago Hoy, which is a free-distribution, Spanish-language publication serving the Chicago area, jumped out at me Wednesday because of its centerpiece package.

Chicago Hoy Front Page from Feb. 3, 2010.

All the copy on the page is in Spanish, so I don’t know what it said. However, the photo is very telling. It conveys a story without me even having to be able to read the words.

Using such a photograph instantly expresses and elicits an emotion, and think the page designer and the photo editor who collaborated to create this cover did a fantastic job.

If I lived in Chicago and could read Spanish, I would have grabbed a copy of this just to find out what the people in the photograph were going through that they were.

(From what I can gleam from the package’s headline and teaser by utilizing my meager Spanish skills, I think there was an accident that caused deaths, but I can’t promise that’s what it says.)

Express

My next pick is the Express, which is a commuter-tab published by The Washington Post.

Express Front Page from Feb. 3, 2010.

This one caught my eye because of the illustration it used to introduce the topic of how the United States Federal Government is discussing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which deals with homosexuals in the military.

Currently Washington politicos are debate whether or not to repeal that policy, and I think this treatment was well done. It used military-esque typefaces and then marked through it, alluding to the possible repeal of the policy and expressing it by making it look like an official document that has been censored by a government entity.

I thought this was really sharp. When I design packages or logos or whatever, I like to try and do it with just fonts. I like they way those types of designs look, but I can honestly say I never would have thought of this. It’s inspiring.

I wasn’t the only blogger to like it. Charles Apple over at Visual Editors also commented on it. Read his take here.

Omaha World-Herald

Finally, I wanted to share Thursday’s Omaha World-Herald.

Omaha World-Herald from Feb. 4, 2010

This front page is heavy on images, yet it is simple and clean. The centerpiece package is what drew me in. This overhead shot of a man digging a grave was quite compelling to me. I saw it and had to see the rest of the page. It is a great photo.

And the map graphic that is part of the centerpiece is cool and helps tell the story visually.

Also, all the mugshot of the University of Nebraska football recruits is an eye-catching teaser for the coverage of the 2010 College Football Signing Day, especially since nearly every reader of the World-Herald is probably a pretty big Cornhuskers fan.

Additionally, the photo of the man in the tree at the top of the left-hand column is kind of neat.

Overall, I think the World-Herald did a great job Thursday.

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About toddvogts 833 Articles
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of media at Sterling College in Kansas. Previously, he taught yearbook, newspaper, newsmagazine, and online journalism in various Kansas high schools, and he ran a weekly newspaper in rural Kansas. He continues to freelance as a professional journalist from time to time. Also, Vogts is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Journalism Education Association (JEA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), among others. He earned his Master Journalism Educator (MJE) certification from JEA in 2022. When he’s not teaching or writing, he runs his mobile disk jockey service and takes part in other entrepreneurial ventures. He can be reached at twitter.com/toddvogts or via his website at www.toddvogts.com.