The idea behind today’s front page was to capture the grandeur of the moment. It was a moment, I believed, that transcended personality and plays into the hope of a nation. We had to convey the ascendancy of America’s first African-American president as much larger than Barack Obama — that his selection was the choice of a nation.

The choice of our lead image on the front page shows Mr. Obama taking the oath as president, not as the central figure, but rather as part of a much larger idea — that idea being the United States of America. In this moment, the capitol dome represented that idea elegantly and succinctly.

We, in the newsroom, spent a great amount of time debating how to appropriately capture the moment. This was not a unanimous decision but rather a product of numerous discussions, disagreements and skepticism over whether we were doing the right thing.

In the process of designing the front page, we had to think beyond the moment and think about what the moment represented. We knew we would not satisfy everyone’s idea of what the right thing to do would be. We just had to make sure that we did not fail to represent the larger picture.

Special things happen when old techniques are used with new technology. Artist Fred Matamoros has a few examples already this year: a graphic on the curve ball, Mariners ace Erik Bedard’s go-to pitch; the Valentines Day cover for GO, our entertainment magazine; an illustration for how iPods have become a household appliance.

Fred says: “We’ve been experimenting with pencil-drawn infographics lately as opposed to those drawn entirely on the computer. Most of the graphics I do start in pencil, but many are then redrawn with a vector-illustration program such as Illustrator or Freehand. The difference with the completely pencil-drawn projects is that the pencil work is also used as final art.

It’s not an entirely new technique at The News Tribune, one of the earlier graphics I did entirely in pencil was ‘Efficiency in Motion,’ in June of 2003. A more recent example was the Stadium High School graphic, ‘A Landmark Renovation,’ in Sept. 2006.”

There are days when we do something truly stupid like running the wrong picture over a person’s name, especially when the person is a local congressman. We had one of those days today when on our front page we ran Randy Tate’s picture when we meant to run Adam Smith. This error went unchecked through at least three separate editors.

We have been getting phone calls from unhappy readers the last two days about how the new weather page does not list Yuma, Ariz. When we redesigned the weather page, Yuma was inadvertantly dropped. We are now working to fix this problem for the Thursday paper.

A question came up during this morning’s news meeting about the effectiveness of our top-of-the-page teaser boxes on the front page. The purpose of these teaser boxes is to promote good and interesting content inside the newspaper. To do that well the boxes have to grab readers’ attention with language and visual imagery. We have also used dramatic color combinations to heighten its visual impact. In short, we are trying to bring more attention to more of our stories using the small space at the top of our front page.

On page 2 of Wednesday’s Sound Life under “Today’s Pick”, we featured the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium as a good place to visit. We also suggested that it would be worth the time to ride the Paul Titus Antique Carousel. We inserted in this little calendar item a photograph of an antique carousel at Point Defiance. We do this to give the calendar item a visual identity. An eagle-eyed reader pointed out to us that the carousel in our picture was not the Paul Titus Antique Carousel. In fact, the carousel in our picture was of another antique carousel at the Taste of Tacoma. In our haste to put the page together, we picked the wrong carousel image from our archives of hundreds of carousel photographs.

The News Tribune won eight Awards of Excellence in the 28th Edition Best of Newspaper Design Creative Competition, sponsored by the Society for News Design and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. More than 1,700 awards were handed out from more than 15,000 entries.

The awards are:

Award of Excellence, Feature design pages, Food/Broadsheet 50,000-174,999 circulation, Headline: Victoria's Venerable Vinegar. John Ellingson, designer.

Award of Excellence, Features page designer portfolio, Individual 50,000-174,999. Elysia Smith, designer.

Award of Excellence, Special coverage, section pages, Cover only, Headline: Contender and pretender. David Montesino, designer.

Award of Excellence, Feature design pages, Entertainment/ Tabloid 50,000-174,999, Headline: Fall Arts Guide. Elysia Smith, designer.

Award of Excellence, Feature design pages, Entertainment/ Tabloid 50,000-174,999, Headline: 2006/2007 (GO’s year-end edition cover). Elysia Smith, designer.

Award of Excellence, Feature design pages, Entertainment/ Tabloid 50,000-174,999, Headline: Elton John (GO cover). Elysia Smith, designer.

Award of Excellence, Photography/Single Photos, Feature, Headline: Talk like a bronc rider. Dustin Snipes, photographer.

Award of Excellence, News Design/Page(s), A-Section/ Broadsheet 50,000-174,999, Headline: Remember the sacrifice (Memorial Day page one). David Montesino, designer; Fred Matamoros, artist

Sound Transit: The light rail line being built from Seattle to the airport eventually will come to Tacoma. But where in Tacoma and when? We'll tell you what government officials are planning.

Gang killings: Tacoma police have made arrests in two gang-related shootings on the Eastside.

South Hill park: The community is planning its fourth park - precious greenspace being set aside amidst all the development.

CHURCH: Deadline approaches today at 5 p.m. for people to appeal to save the historic First United Methodist Church in downtown Tacoma from the wrecking ball.

CEMETERY: The Puyallup Indian tribe is protecting the heritage of its ancestors by putting a $3 million fence around a historic cemetery near the Emerald Queen Casino.

AARDVARK: Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium celebrates the life and times of an elderly aardvark.

Senate: Candidates Cantwell and McGavick square off in a debate this afternoon, alongside the Libertarian candidate.

PC Budget: County Executive John Ladenburg announces his proposed budget today for 2007.

Stryker: We'll have another report from our reporter and photographer in Iraq, this time on a historic site near Mosul.

Meringue: Our food guy Ed Murrieta teaches us all how to get the perfect meringue.

Jobs: Local jobless report is due out today.

Our SoundLife cover of Friday, Oct. 6, elicited a lively discussion from those present at the morning critique. Here is what was said:

“The unanimous feeling was we're glad that we're taking chances with design, but let's acknowledge that this one didn't work. We used almost an entire page for something that basically had no content. A student said it was so distracting that it was too hard to read. Several people wished we had put Soren's (Anderson) top 5 picks or a schedule or something on the cover.”

Unfortunately, I was not present at the critique session to share the reason we did what we did. Here are my thoughts on why the page worked and the thinking behind the presentation:

The challenge I gave the designer was to come up with a design that went beyond your traditional photo, headline and story variety. I wanted a design that was different enough and yet gave the reader what the reader needed to know. We needed a hook to get people who may not otherwise be interested in a Tacoma film festival story wanting to read the piece. I think the design did the two things I wanted it to accomplish: 1) Hook the reader and 2) give the reader vital information on the festival. I don’t think 8 inches of narrative and a shot of the venue would compel readers to dig in.

Would I do this approach again? Absolutely. The lesson here is in being able to recognize opportunities where the non-traditional design solution works. I would argue that the page worked because it was different. We wouldn’t do this every day. But when a story presents itself for a similar approach, I hope we would jump on the opportunity.
popcorn page.pdfpopcorn page.pdf

Air: We're expecting the release this morning of a report that shows poor air quality at a monitoring station in South Tacoma.

Drifting: Our Sound Life cover tomorrow will tell you about people who skid their cars sideways - on purpose. We encourage you to try this at the track, not on the street outside your house.

Football Friday: We set up the first weekend of Pac-10 football play.