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Charles Apple: The Visual Side of Journalism

 

‘Notable wordplay’ archive

Number of comments in parentheses

May 16: Fun skybox promo alert

Lots of papers ran that wire story yesterday on the most popular baby names. Some ran it on page one. And some refered to it off of A1. No one did this better — and had more fun with it — than did the Virginian-Pilot. This skybox is cute and it catches the eye. But take particular note of what [...]

May 13: Clever headline alert: Sydney, Australia, Sun-Herald

Matt Martel — managing editor for presentation of the Sydney (Australia) Morning Herald — wrote to alert us to this clever Sunday front-page headline about gays in the Australian military: Yep. Very clever. Matt tells us the headline was… …the idea of art director Steve Salmon. Find the story here. The Sun-Herald is the Sunday tabloid edition of the Morning [...]

May 12: Clever headline alert: Wall Street Journal

Ashley Kritzer of the Jacksonville (Fla.) Business Journal tweets: The headline over which she’s swooning this morning is inside toay’s Wall Street Journal: The reference is to James Dimon of J.P. Morgan Chase, which reportedly lost $2 billion in questionable trading, under the noses of regulators. His explanation that no, the bank is not taking bad risks are a bit [...]

May 11: Another “this HAS to be intentional” headline

But seriously: How on Earth could anyone write a headline like this unintentionally? Just amazing. This headline was posted Thursday afternoon and reportedly stood like that for a while until it was finally, mercifully, changed to something more benign. It was originally pointed out by James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal and then written about last night by Mediaite. [...]

May 8: Curtail pop culture references? Illogical, Captain.

Today, Phil Blanchard of Testy Copy Editors ranted at the Reynolds Center’s BusinessJournalism.org against pop-culture references in news stories. Specifically, against Star Trek references in business stories. Dammit, Phil. I’m a designer, not a copy editor. As always, Phil has a point. I don’t necessarily think it’s my beloved Star Trek he’s ranting about; rather, it’s about using pop culture [...]

April 23: Two top-notch Monday morning page-one headlines

I didn’t see a whole lot to get excited about design-wise in my morning romp through the Newseum. However, I did spot a couple of headlines worthy of your attention… — SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Salt Lake City, Utah Circulation: 105,746 The Salt Lake Tribune built page one today around a story about a local conservationist who’s an expert on local [...]

April 22: A perfect headline for a perfect baseball game (3)

Philip Humber of the Chicago White Sox pitched a perfect game Saturday against the  Mariners in Seattle. It was only the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history. For those of you who aren’t baseball fans, a “perfect game” is one in which no one on the opposing team reaches first base. For the entire game. Rich Boudet, sports [...]

April 22: Sioux City, Iowa, runs a full-front-page anti-bullying editorial

Following the heartbreaking suicide of a 14-year-old high school student in nearby Primghar, Iowa, last Sunday the Sioux City Journal cleared off its front page today for a powerful, full-page anti-bullying editorial. Click for a much larger view. The art is by Brian Duffy, a nationally-syndicated cartoonist based in Des Moines. Brian spent 25 years as cartoonist for the Des [...]

April 12: ACES honors the year’s ace headline writers

While I’m here in Virginia Beach slaving away over a hot stove blog, my ACES colleagues are in New Orleans this week, attempting to create an acute beer shortage meeting and discussing the finer points of journalism. Naturally, I wish I could join them. Perhaps next year. In the meantime, though, ACES today announced the winners of its annual headline [...]

March 9: Today’s most interesting front page (7)

My daily stroll through the Newseum didn’t result in much to talk about today. I was captivated, however, by this front page: The Forum of Fargo and Moorhead, N.D., circulation 51,165. Seems to me that there’s an awful lot here to pull in even the most finicky of readers. For starters, there’s the lead story about a woman who was [...]

Feb. 29: A tongue-in-cheek A1 package in Casper, Wyoming (1)

Here’s the situation: In order to draw attention to its growing concern about how the Federal government operates these days, the Wyoming state legislature proposed a bill to study how it should respond in case the U.S. government should collapse politically or economically. At the top of the list of proposals: Buy an aircraft carrier. Despite the fact that a) [...]

Feb. 27: There’s just no way this headline wasn’t intentional (2)

This wickedly funny headline comes from Second Front, the political blog of the alternative online magazine known as Weld for Birmingham. I spent some time poking around that site last night and I couldn’t find any other headlines that struck me nearly as edgy as that one. So perhaps this was purely a coincidence. Or not. Most likely not. — [...]

Feb. 27: A look at today’s Academy Awards front pages (3)

Oscars night is always huge for lovers of fine entertainment everywhere. Here’s a look at some of today’s notable Oscar ceremony front pages from Los Angeles and around the country… — DAILY NEWS Los Angeles, Calif. Circulation: 89,990 The Daily News placed the five individual big winners across the top of its front page and led that front with a [...]

Feb. 21: Another world-class headline

Jim Romenesko found this one today: That’s from the Free Press of Burlington, Vt. Congratulations to my former boss Mike Townsend and his crew. Find the story here. Yes, this is the second great headline in a row I’ve posted today. I think it’d be difficult to argue with either of them, though.

Feb. 21: Now, there’s a headline you don’t see every day

Heh… That’s from yesterday’s Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle. Staffer Steve Crawford reports: Owners of Atlanta’s Magic City say they have been scandalized by news reports about a purported teen club in Augusta that went by the same name. The teen club at 3200 Mike Padgett Highway was shut down after a shootout in the parking lot last month resulted in the [...]

Feb. 20: A brief tribute to the power of words

This has apparently been around for a year or so. But that doesn’t make it any less great of a lesson on the power of words. As you see, that was an advertisement for Purplefeather online marketing of Glasgow, Scotland. Credits, as listed at YouTube: Homage to Historia de un letrero, The Story of a Sign by Alonso Alvarez Barreda [...]

Feb. 20: Apparently, there are a few cute Jeremy Lin headlines left to use

I would have thought the controversy surrounding ESPN’s debacle Friday night might have cured us all from using cute headlines for the continuing story about the admittedly astounding Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks. No such luck, though. The Knicks won big again last night. Eliciting this truly stretched-past-the-breaking-point pun from the New York Post. The Daily News gets [...]

Feb. 18: Surely this will be the end of the ‘cute’ Jeremy Lin headlines (5)

I was hoping those Mad magazine parody Jeremy Lin headlines the other day might be the last word on that topic. But apparently not. Following Lin’s 9-turnover performance Friday night — which snapped the Knicks’ winning streak — ESPN decided to spit out one more attempt at a cute headline. A misguided attempt at a cute headline. I mean, really. Not [...]

Feb. 16: For your consideration…

So, when RedEye says “ass” in the headline, is it referring to the stripper’s backside? Or is it referring to the person who wrote the headline? Just wondering. Read the story here about a proposed $5 tax on admission into Illinois strip clubs. Average daily distribution for the free tabloid — published by the Chicago Tribune — is about 250,000. [...]

Feb. 16: Do those Jeremy Lin NY tab headlines push far enough? (1)

Last night, we took a look at a number of headlines in Wednesday’s New York tabloids regarding Jeremy Lin of the Knicks.           Hey, I’m a guy who likes pun headlines. But even to me, some of these seemed to be a bit of a stretch. But let’s flip this around: Did those headlines go far [...]

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