Our cover story today: Why do so many NFL players own guns?
Not that it’s not a clever treatment, but should it really be pointed at a football player?
We’ve had a bit of fun with Stephen Colbert’s challenge to us on how we’d cover non-circular news.
Here are the final two logos we built just for him, including a likeness of the comedian and his ultimate challenge: a story about SpongeBob SquarePants eating Doritos at the Pentagon.
(That last one even appears in print today on the Life section.)
Anything else, Mr. Colbert?
USA Today in a fight with Colbert? Bring it.
Happy Birthday, USA Today. The newspaper critics once described as “television you can wrap fish in” is turning 30-years-old. Read “A Newspaper That Influenced Us All” in Garcia Media, a fascinating look back at what this project meant to the industry and its design community.
FJP Fun Fact: USA Today did try to launch a television program. Called, originally enough, USA Today: The Television Show, it launched in 1988 and was cancelled a year and a half later due to poor ratings.
FJP Quibble: USA Today launched on September 15th, 1982, so happy pre-birthday.
A very kind post here from Mario Garcia — and today’s our 30th birthday! We’re looking forward to the next 30 years.
Ball-shaped logo or not, fact is that USA Today did a lot to modernize newspapers. Happy birthday, fellas!
The “Cool Balls” manifesto, by designer Sam Ward — who may have spent far too much time designing the daily versions of our new logo.
I have a dream … that one day all Americans will join hands and declare their undying love for our balls; our spheres of influence, our behaviors, or whatever one chooses to call them.
Actually, and perhaps with an air of creepiness, I DID have a dream about this very topic. I dreamt that people all over the place were talking about the images in USA TODAY’s balls. It was creating quite a stir; which, if we do our job right, shouldn’t be far from the truth. [more]
Click on to read more about USA Today’s focus on ball-based design.
USA Today: Wow, they sure gave that redesign a giant blue circle for a logo. (More info on the change here.)
Remember this headline? Yeah, that was great. Anyway, USA Today decided that it, too, deserves better, and is planning a major redesign with a new logo and the whole kit-and-kaboodle. The paper is timing the launch of the redesign to coincide with its 30th anniversary September 15.
In which USA Today tries for the powerful quote headline to emphasize the RNC’s overarching message, and somehow pulls off the opposite effect. (via Charles Apple)
It’s “going to be a bit of a tough day,” she told USA TODAY in a 40-minute phone interview Wednesday, sounding as though she were fighting back tears. “I’m going to have to tell our viewers. That’s what makes me more emotional than anything. I don’t want to leave them. I love them. And I will really miss them.‘Today’ co-host Ann Curry will bid farewell today – USATODAY.com (via apsies)
So wait … USA Today is on Tumblr, and nobody told us? Man, we’re slacking. Welcome to the neighborhood, guys! When’s the housewarming party?
Find it interesting that Kim Dotcom — and by extension, MegaUpload — got a front page centerpiece on USA Today this morning. Reading the story, it’s relatively fair, but seems not to give much play to the fact that people actually used the service for legal reasons, too. (cover via Newseum)
Congrats Tumblr!
Don’t screw this up Yahoo.
In 2007, I was...
I started tumblr when I was at one of the lowest points of...
Exclusive: How the Syrian Electronic Army hacked the...
soon
Yahumblr.
Someone figured out how to make this even better. This person gets a cookie and a high-five.
Remember that graphic we posted yesterday? You know, the one from USA Today, with the sun and the thermometer? Our friend Charles Apple got a hold of a high-resolution version of it (it ran on Friday), and he has a lesson for budding copy editors — journalism is an industry for dirty minds.
The newspaper is doing OK right now. Not great, just OK. In the past six months, that gray newsprint behemoth did OK, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulation, with the top two papers gaining some ground and most of the top five staying roughly in the same order. However, the way that the group analyzed the data changed this time around — deciding, instead of focusing just on paid circulation, to emphasize “average circulation,” which includes separate editions under the umbrella of a certain brand. The numbers caused one paper to rocket into the top five and one to fall out. See if you can guess by the numbers below:
» A few things of note: If you guessed that the San Jose Mercury News benefited greatly from the change in data, you’re correct — MediaNews treats each newspaper on this page as an “edition” of the Mercury News (which seems a little number-inflating). Other notes: This data covers the daily circulation for the past six months — a period which only includes a tiny bit of the New York Times’ post-paywall circulation (so come back in six months to see if it was a success). But e-editions are doing quite well, especially for the Wall Street Journal and Detroit Free Press. One last thing: The numbers only cover paid newspapers, not free ones. (photo by Brent D. Payne)
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