Responses
km , 7/13/2005, 11:21:39 PM
Elaine:
A few things to consider before switching to broadsheet:
1. It's harder to design since you will have more items on the page. Inexperienced layout designers will struggle with 4-6 stories, graphics, etc. On a tab, you will have 1-3 stories to deal with. Editors should have strong layout templates developed.
2. You will have to create new templates and have to restructure your ad sizes and costs. A full page broadsheet will be worth much more, but your advertisers may not be willing to spring for a half or full page but want one anyway and be disappointed because they used to have a full page. What I mean is that you were running 20-24 pages in tabloid but you will probably just run 12-16 of broadsheet or even 8 with the same amount of stories and if someone takes up a whole page with an ad, it is a lot more space relatively speaking now, especially if you were short tab before.
3. Students may think the paper is not as big as it used to be since it's fewer pages.
4. You can't have as many people working on the paper as before since more info is on one page and only one person can be working on that one page at a time. so it can get frustrating when one person is struggling to layout six stories and no one can help since they are all on one page. Ditto with proofing pages on screen.
\5. Tabloid really lends itself to viewing in confined spaces like students' desks or buses. the paper doesn't take up much room when a person is reading it and it doesn't bump into the seat next to you on the bus. Tab is easier to manage.
However--you will have more layout options with a broadsheet and it looks like a professional paper--if your designers can handle it--or else it looks like a mess in big format.
Good luck with your decision.
katie
Dave Milbrandt, 7/27/2005, 7:20:42 PM
I am coming into teaching high school from being an adviser at a small, private college newspaper that went from tabloid to broadsheet. The biggest challenge I found was encouraging students to "think" broadsheet and not tabloid when it came to design. They have a bigger canvas to design upon and sometimes students just don't know what to do with that extra space.
The nice thing about the transient nature of student staffs is that you only have to change the thinking of students for 1-2 years and then you will have new students who you can train in the new design without having to "correct" old ways of thinking.
Once my students started to get used to creating better designs on fewer pages, they never said "We want to go back to tabloid." To keep the number of pages higher, you might want to consider reducing the publication frequency.
And with more colleges considering and making the jump to broadsheet, your students will be better prepared to work on college papers.
In summation, if you can get past the design issues and are willing to live with some of the concerns Katie mentioned in her posting, I think you and your staff would find the move to broadsheet quite beneficial.
I hope my "two cents worth" has been helpful. I am happy to answer other questions as they arise.
Cordially,
Dave
Mark Webber, 8/3/2005, 6:22:37 PM
I teach high school journalism and advise the student paper (tabloid) and also work part-time at the local daily (broadsheet) as relief and weekend news editor. So, I'm involved with both sides of the debate.
It's a big switch to go from one to the other. Students feel intimidated by the size of the broadsheet, and I think it's easier for their peers to read in the classroom or at home. The smaller size fits more easily in backpacks. It's sometimes frustrating for me to help them with page design because I'm accustomed to broadsheet and find the tabloid very restricting.
I have found student readers like the sense of intimacy tabloids have. In a sense it's what they expect from "their" paper.
Broadsheet is good because it allows for varied design possibilities, yet it is not often for the best because new templates will need to be created, ad sizes and prices will have to be recomputed, and decisions will have to be made on where to put everything now in place in the tab.
Twelve tab pages now become six broadsheet, and if store "abc" has the back page in the tab, will it expect the entire page in the broadsheet for the same price it's getting now? You'd have to be careful of how you adjust your ad sizes/prices so you'd not lose money.
I hope this helps you with your decision.
MW
Coni C. Grebel, 9/7/2005, 8:56:23 AM
All of the posted responses have held good advice, but for my staff, broadsheet had made a huge improvement in our paper. While the adjustments were many, the overall result has been worth it. And actually, the adjustments were pretty easy ones to make because you're going from less room with very design options to moreroom with more options. Ad sizes actually were a positive change.We found that potential advertizers were more willing to advertize in something that looked more like an adult production. Bigger ,however, does not automaticaly mean better. Prepare you students that you will expect deeper coverage of issues, more infographics and other cuts, and better quality writing. Changing from tabloid to broadsheet brought my staff the feeling that they were creating something closer to what the real world will expect.
