You may have noticed something different about the Sun Day this edition. It has a new and refreshing look to celebrate its seventh anniversary! But like “new” and “refreshing” things, it’s actually, in many ways, a throwback to the Sun Day’s original design. Maybe not exactly a throwback to the original design but definitely a throwback to the original idea, which I’ve never put into effect.
In terms of layout, I’ve always been partial to magazines. Layout in a magazine is, in my opinion, more fun. I’ve kind of always thought of a newspaper as your stogy dad and a magazine as your crazy, wild uncle—the one who will carry you upside down as a kid and hand you a beer at sixteen because he knows that both will probably make you throw up. Magazines just have more pizazz. But, like great uncles, they’re not without wisdom. They just present it in a more fun (or funner!) way. And that was my intention with redesigning the cover. I wanted to make it more fun while maintaining the insight readers have grown to trust. Thus I give you what I consider a pretty good hybrid cover that crosses the atmosphere of a newspaper with the suggestion of a magazine.
I also wanted to give the photos center stage.
This may come as a surprise to those who know me, but in terms of a my career as a journalist, I’ve always thought of myself first as a photographer then a reporter, so I can’t say I’m entirely unbiased when it comes to what I think is more effective in print: photos or stories. Frankly, they depend on each other, despite that photos are dispensable. Stories are not.
But photos are cleaner and more attention grabbing. And an effective photo can tell the whole story in one gulp. They’re also cleaner, which was my second intention in redesigning the cover. I wanted to make it cleaner, easier to read, and save the flurry of headlines and bullet points for the interior, where the sea of black print really stretches.
You’ll also notice some changes to this page. However, keeping with the family metaphors, page 2 is like the second born, yeah they’re important and usually make their own changes right in step with the older sibling, but they’re just not as special as that grand first born, so I’ll pass over it (see editor’s note at bottom).
Hopefully I’ve done these two things. Hopefully, you find the Sun Day’s new cover brighter, cleaner, and, of course, funner while still enjoying and trusting the information the Sun Day brings to the Sun City community. The paper is about you, after all, and you are a fun community with tons of pizazz and loads of wisdom, so why not reflect that in your community’s newspaper?
Thank you fine readers for your continued readership. And thank you for sharing your stories with the Sun Day for seven straight years.
(Editor’s note: no offense to you second borns. The second born in my family is actually my favorite and the most interesting one of us. Not to mention, in terms of being skipped over, try being the fourth born. Yeah, I’m the precious baby of the family, but by number four, mom and dad have a tendency to forget that have one more back there at the end of the line! Think the movie Home Alone.)
