Front Page Revisionist History

Sometimes I get an idea in my head, and it won't go away until I get it out on paper. Unfortunately, one idea I had this week was "How else could we have done that Twitter front". You don't get do-overs in the paper, but if you have free time, you can redesign an old page and try to using it as a teaching moment.

Here's what ran on Tuesday.


















And here's a version that I think would have been more effective (the layout would be the same below the fold).


















The story's about a lot of people joining Twitter, so I went with putting a lot of birds on the front. I drew the birds in Illustrator, based off some sketches I had done in a notebook and some inspiration from others people's Twitter Bird designs (there are a lot out there). All of the birds are the exact same drawing, I just stretched, squeezed and flipped them to make them all a little different. I also bevel and embossed them, because I like that effect.

Here's the original drawing,




















I made the lead hed as close to the twitter font as I could (it's just a rounded off Arial). I also was able to make the news deck exactly 140 characters, the amount Twitter allows you to include in one post.

But, like I said, you don't get do-overs and that first page looked fine. But sometimes, it's good to go back and think about how something could have been done differently. That way, the next time a design opportuniy like this arises, you know how to do something that works, rather than something you're not entirely happy with.

Here endeth the lesson,

John