This is a front page from The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk (USA).
The Society for News Design (SND) has given a Gold award to this dramatic page.
It is elegant, simple, direct and meaningful.
One the best newspaper front pages ever done.
Pilot Graphics Director Charles Apple wrote this at the time it was published on Newsdesigner:
This was what our subscribers – and our single-copy readers – saw.
Sam Hundley did the design.
The brief essay was by ace writer Lon Wagner, our narrative team leader.
You’ll find the name of the paper at the very top of the page, in about 6.5-point type.
Sam says he was asked months ago to come up with something special. He started out using the numeral 5, but nothing clicked.
Then, he went through sketches that used the tick marks.
Suddenly, the solution leaped out at him.
Sam used this at the Illustration Summit in Evanston, Ill., in June “as an example of how your subconscious can find a solution before you see it yourself,” sam says.
He originally drew it as an A1 centerpiece.
Deb Withey, the Pilot’s DME/Presentation, insisted on clearing off the rest of the page and letting the image stand alone, Sam says.
“You have to give her a lot of credit for that.
She really got behind it.”
We received nice feedback from both inside and outside the paper.
A member of our ad department wrote our editor:
“This piece really made me reflect on what I was doing during this time.
The cover alone really had an impression on me as to what had happened and how things have changed in our society.”
And a reader somewhat pessimistically wrote:
“This is what will be lost when the V-P eventually is gobbled up by one of the mega-monsters. Brilliance, art, poetry.
Communication at the deepest level.
Nice job, y’all.”
