Layout

Currently I am the assistant design director for The California Aggie. It is my job to do the layout of the newspaper twice a week and working here has made me think about newspaper design. Newspapers are the main way people receive their information, so the way it is designed has a lot of impact on our society.

Recently I’ve been reading this book The Exception to the Rulers by Amy Goodman and in the first chapter she talks about how the media manipulates the public by only focusing on the same few stories when there are thousands of others out there. She talks about how the media now sets the political agenda because they bring attention to topics that may not be as important as other problems, but the politicians now have to focus on because the public wants them to. For example, Park 51. The “ground zero” mosque was given a lot more attention than it deserved this summer and because the media commented on it so often, it became an important issue in society. It’s disgusting that xenophobic racists were featured in the media and their discriminatory agenda was put at the forefront of society.

Everyone glances at a newspaper every day. It might just be a quick look at the front page, but they receive a lot of information in that second, which is why layout design is so fascinating. It all depends on where a designer decides to place a story. If a story is in big, bold letters all the way across a newspaper’s front page with a huge picture, that is going to get way more attention than a article that takes up a fourth of a page in the middle of the newspaper. If there is a story of a protest and a layout designer puts a huge picture of police beating up protestors, the reader is going to be biased towards the protestors. If a layout designer were to make a picture of an out of control protest the main picture, the readers' opinions of the protestors is going to be a lot different.

http://www.amazon.com/Exception-Rulers-Exposing-Politicians-Profiteers/dp/1401301312