Otterblog

On my desk, behind the coffee mug and the stapler and next to the candy dish, is a rain gauge. I brought it here on Friday to help put together a graphic on our low-level drought. It was a really nice graphic. It never ran.

We pulled it on Friday night, after the torrential summer storms swept through our area. The drought hasn’t gone away, but it was apparent that a graphic that showed an empty rain gauge against cracked earth would look a little—what’s the right word?—goofy on the front page. We made the call late in the production process, and it was the right one, and as a result a lot of talented people—paginators, line editors, photographers, reporters and copy editors—worked their tails off to make our new front page for Saturday look as sharp as it did.

Front pages have changed a lot in the 20 years I’ve been at the Journal. They’re more designed. Better planned. With more moving parts. Thank the computer for the technology. Thank the page designers who have become true craftsmen (and craftswomen) in creating pages that read well and look good.

The danger in the intersection between design and journalism is that you don’t want your design to dictate your news too much. Form and function have to work together. Awesome art and presentation can elevate a story’s prominence, but it only gets you so far. And planning is vital for design, but flexibility and an understanding that things can and will change as quickly as the weather are much more important during crunch time.