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2010 Better Newspaper Contest — Page Design

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Division 2
Dailies 7,000 or More
1. Facts, Clute — Great use of teasers, cut-outs. Pics were playful, professional. Fonts were clean. Opinion was too cluttered with too much bold.
2. Lubbock Avalanche-Journal — Love the blue-red-blue headers. Buddy Holly layout was eye catching. Flowers feature was lovely. Sports and opinion designs were very clean, professional.
3. Victoria Advocate — Great teasers. Nice “block” images of photo. Great color on sports front. Nice cut-out on opinion.
4. El Paso Times — Amazing teaser on front. Nice use of cutout of Rihanna. Spaghetti bowl graphic was compelling. Nice color throughout, especially on opinion.

Division 3
Dailies 7,000 or Less
1. San Marcos Daily Record  — Interesting use of story about flag. Great buzzard art.
2. Taylor Daily Press — Needs color sports on front. Good veteran shots. Nice rail on sports.
3. Waxahachie Daily Light — Fun lifestyle front. Plenty to look at on front page. Ads on top look hokey.
4. Brownwood Bulletin — Pink? Nice lifestyle front. Needs color on sports.

Division 4
Semiweeklies 4,001 or More
1. Williamson County Sun — Digging your paper! Fonts are consistent but order of importance is obvious. Kudos to graphics designer— very effective. Loved boxing photo. Good use of photos above fold to draw readers. Use of lines, headlines, subheads and white space make this newspaper clean and reader-friendly.
2. Wise County Messenger — Wow! Your front page is ballsy! Definitely a fitting tribute to a fallen officer. Kudos for having the guts to not run typed stories on the front. Good use of quality photos. Wasn’t crazy about font on sports front, but it is appropriate given the gritty, urban effect you were going for. Op-ed page easy to read.
3. Hood County News — Way to rock some photos! Excellent use of art above fold. Clean and easy to read. Design features— boxes on sports page— clean. Editorial page a bit hard to read. Frames and text on lifestyle page too much, although I understand the effect. Overall very clean.
4. Beeville Bee-Picayune — Liked that you aren’t afraid to run big photos. Graphic with grapes on lifestyles front and teaser bar on front page interesting. Headlines have too many decks and tend to look the same. Use typography to tell readers what’s important.

Division 5
Semiweeklies 4,000 or Less
1. Round Rock Leader — Points for innovation on homefront page! Overall good package, clean. Maybe consider breaking up text a bit more on homefront and editorial pages.
2. Copperas Cove Leader-Press  — Your presentation of the dog fight on front made the page. Design elements — sidebars and other graphics— broke up the text well. Try to give things a bit more room to breathe and beware of too many three-deck headlines.
3. Lampasas Dispatch Record — Good use of photos to break up text. Sports sidebar is well done, as is sales tax graphic. Overall, division of stories— editorial page especially— needs some work. It’s O.K. to use some lines. Liked front and sports pages!
4. Andrews County News — Good presentation of page 1 murder story— nice package! Good photo but too much text on sports. Don’t change body fonts on editorial page, one on one. Not a bad package overall.

Division 6
Large Weeklies
1. Hays Free Press — All pages well designed and attractive. Good use of color and photos. All pages have a strong local image. Editorial page is well balanced. Clean design on sports page— very appealing. Neighbors page plays photo and flows well. Very nice looking paper.
2. Wilson County News — Nice front centerpiece design. Good skybox. Nice photo display on living page. Sports has odd headline fonts! Distracting and not effective. Stick to main typeface. Good use of color photos throughout.
3. Rockdale Reporter — Nice front design of fair photos. Very strong sports page. You use photos well but cut down on use of color tints— looks dated and makes pages too busy and cluttered. Go for cleaner look. Good, strong headline fonts are used well throughout.
4. Pleasanton Express — Sports is your best page— nice impact, good use of photos and headlines. Main art on front page is attractive but posed and a bit cheesy. Living page lacks a focal point and dominant art. Green tint boxes went out with the ‘80s.

Division 7
Medium Large Weeklies
1. Smithville Times — Great fire/storm package. Good elections box. Strong opinion page. Fun and interesting lifestyles page.
2. Alpine Avalanche — Strong flag and teaser rail. Nice Obama package. Strong opinion page. Great year-in-review feature. Bright sports page.
3. Jasper Newsboy — Two nice packages on front page. Excitement of football season expressed on sports.
4. Hearne Democrat — Good front-page rail. Nice birthday box and menu listing.

Division 8
Medium Weeklies
1. West Austin News — Great front page package and events page. Very clean photography.
2. Community News, Aledo — Great front page packages “on the side.” Compelling sports front. Nice hot dog package.
3. Clay County Leader — Great football package on front. Nice, clean fonts. Nice information for readers on sondries page.
4. Hill Country Community Journal — Great use of color on front page. Strong teasers. Great sports front.

Division 9
Small Medium Weeklies
1. Canadian Record — Nice tabloid look. Good use of space on front to tease inside stories. Lots of photos in sports makes pages lively. Solid, clean look on other pages. Don’t overdo spot color or tint boxes, which can distract.
2. Albany News — Nice, clean modular look on front, well organized for readers. Good looking sports page. Clean fonts. Go for more consistent fonts, look in skyboxes. Simple design works for readers.
3. Gladewater Mirror — Nice look, clean and well organized. Great photo on front page, played well. Love sports page. Features page draws eye as well. Too many competing headline fonts. Pick a main face and play variations off it.
4. Pilot Point Post-Signal — Nice look, good impact with main photo. Good mix of elements, well organized. Sports page is a little airy— lots of white space. A little is good. Nice features page.

Division 10
Small Weeklies
1. Everman Star — Congrats on your first edition. Front is clean and well organized. Paper is easy to read throughout. Simple design, not a lot of bells and whistles, but that’s not always bad. Solid sports page.
2. Keene Star — Nice, clean appealing front page. Don’t need heavy tint box inside rail. Good, newsy page with clean headlines. Sports photos need work, need more focus, pick one as main art. Other pages work O.K.
3. Murphy Monitor — Nice clean, simple design. Front page easy to scan and read. Headline font a bit thin, looks squeezed. Sports and editorial pages fine. Photo page is too cluttered. Knockout pic plopped on top of page looks random, distracting.
4. Joshua Star — Solid front page. Main photo and headline draw the eye. Clean, orderly page. Editorial page solid and clean. Sports could use action photos of local teams.