Overall results

The findings of this research reveal many qualities that make up award-winning news design. Overall, it is clear that very large main images are quite common, with the average dominant image taking up nearly 50 percent of the page. Headlines are generally small, around 4 percent of the page and there is a substantial amount of white space, with around 60 percent of each page being counted as white space. Despite the size of the dominant image, there is often more than one image, with there being an average of 6.72 images on each page.

The average page being dominated by a large image is to be expected, as larger images catch the readers’ eye first and draw them into the story (Homqvist, 2005). The standard deviation of the dominant image size is 27.09, meaning that 68 percent of the pages have a dominant image that falls between 21.93 percent and 76.11 percent. This is a fairly large standard deviation considering that of the 495 pages that were coded, 158 (32 percent) had dominant images that fell outside of that range. And of those 158, 46 pages had dominant images that were less than 10 percent of the page, while there were just 13 that had dominant images that were more than 90 percent of the page. Therefore, it’s clear that the size of dominant images varies widely throughout different pages and isn’t necessarily a hard and fast rule.

Part of what could explain the large differences in image size could be the correlation between the number of images on the page and the size of the largest image. If there are a lot of smaller illustrations that are combined to form one idea or concept, the main illustration would be fairly small, despite having an important impact on the page. Infographics too, generally had very small pictures, but had a lot of different ones. But on sports pages or feature pages, they were often dominated by a very large image and thus wouldn’t have had as much room for a bunch of smaller pictures.

Headlines though, were often fairly small at around 4 percent of the page, but as mentioned in the literature review, the size of the headline doesn’t also need to be excessively large if it is surrounded by white space because the additional space would give it a greater impact (Bergstrom, 2008). This tends to be common on a lot of pages, especially ones that have a greater amount of white space, because the text doesn’t have to compete with a lot of other components for the readers’ attention. The main outlier here is The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s sports pages, which have very small headlines on a small black background often splashed across very busy photos.

The standard deviation for headlines is 6.05, so 68 percent of the headlines fall between being 0 percent of the page and 10.01 percent of the page. Since headlines are generally much smaller than other images on a page, this smaller size range is still represents a significant array of headline sizes. An interesting thing to note is that there were 11 pages that didn’t have a headline at all and there were 42 pages that had headlines that were greater than 10.01 percent of the page, with the largest headline being 57.33 percent of the page.

White space on pages is more tricky. A term that is more accurate than white space may be “empty space,” since many pages have  lightly colored photos or illustrations that let the text and headline breathe and give a sense of emptiness on the page. This is a big part of why the percentages of the white space, headlines and images add up to more than 100. It’s fairly common to have a lightly colored sky background in images and use that empty space to place the headline or the start of the article.

The standard deviation for white space on a page is not as large as the one for dominant imagery, but is still substantial at 20.66. So, 68 percent of all pages have between 39.71 and 81.03 percent white space. There were 31 pages that had white space that took up more than 90 percent of the page, but just 3 pages that were less than 10 percent white space. It seems clear then, that while the pages have varied amounts of white space, having next to no white space is generally avoided, potentially due to readability concerns of dark pages and a lack of images that are almost entirely dark.

Regarding the number of images on a page, while it may seem as though it would be difficult to fit 6.72 images on a page when the largest one is nearly half the size of the page, it is typical for pages to have multiple very small images as little graphics, or to accompany teasers. Headshots are also common on news pages, and photos of book covers or sports logos are often seen on features or sports pages.

Results by section

It is clear that pages of all sections are often dominated by large images that take up close to half of the page or more. This doesn’t hugely vary by section, but news tended to have the smallest image, which makes sense because those pages tend to focus more on having multiple stories and plenty of text, with not as much focus on the images that accompany them. Sports though has the largest dominant image at about 54 percent of the page. This is most likely explained by blowing up very large reaction shots from exciting moments or results from sporting events. Because people often express a great deal of emotion, it’s typical to enlarge the photo so that people immediately see and connect with it.

Headlines though, are generally fairly small, taking up less than 5 percent of the page. It seems to be common (especially on sports pages) to let the dominant image do most of the talking and keep the headline smaller and more subtle so it doesn’t distract. Headlines are generally largest in the opinions section, which could be a result of longer headlines that are needed to explain the opinion of the column. But it is also important to note that the opinions section also had the smallest sample size, with just 31 data points.

White space is also prominent in all sections, and only sports has white space below the average amount of 60.37 percent at just 57.94 percent. The sports section is most likely explained because those pages tend to be dominated by large, busy photos with less empty space. This is partially because of the papers that most commonly won in the sports design section – The Los Angeles Times and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. These papers often used black backgrounds on a lot of their sports pages, particularly their Rio Olympics coverage, which seriously decreased the amount of white space.  

The average number of photos (6.72) overall is a result of the combination of pages that often only had 2 or 3 images in features and opinions, with a very high number of images on sports pages (9.68). Sports may have a higher number of images because the pages are often trying to captures multiple key moments from a game or an event, instead of an overall feeling. Features and opinions usually had fewer images because they were dominated by one large photo with smaller images often reserved for tiny headshots or teasers. News was in the middle ground because there were both more stories on news pages that needed images and news articles would often use more than one photo per article.

News and sports are the two sections that tend to lean heavily on photography for its visuals. Both use photography significantly more than any other kind of image, which makes sense because both sections are more focused on capturing specific moments, such as breaking news topics like car crashes, fires or attacks or sporting events like a particular pitch or game-winning point. Features and opinions, which tended to use illustrations more often, generally try to convey emotions, feelings or in the case of opinions, complex topics that aren’t necessarily done justice by one photo.