The making of an Obama front page
Raju Narisetti -
Thursday, November 06, 2008 8:36 PM
Barack Obama's election saw a surge in newspaper sales, temporarily lifting the mood in what has been a very gloomy year--full of layoffs and cutbacks--at American newspapers. While the story was quite compelling, powerful images also drove sales. To look at some of the more compelling front pages of American newspapers and read an analysis by Visual Editors CEO Robb Montgomery's, go to this blog. And to get the European perspective, check out The Guardian's take here.
At Mint, we went with this front page on 6 November, the first time in the paper's 19-month history that we have put just one story on Page 1:
For those of you not too familiar with what goes into a paper's front page look on a special day such as Obama's election, I thought it might be fun to look at how Mint's art director Abel Robinson planned for the issue, an effort that started a week ago and involved nearly a dozen different ideas before settling on the final image. He had to work without knowing exactly what images we would finally get or if the page would have an ad on it (plus a backup plan if John McCain pulled off an upset).
Here is how the page evolved--keep an eye on the images, the changes in the headline.
And finally ending up with this front page:
Enjoy.