Finds that overall, American newspaper front pages are more graphically pleasing today than ever before and that the revolution in design that began 20 years ago is continuing. (FL)

Subjects who were shown slides of four newspaper front pages--traditional, contemporary, well-designed traditional, and well-designed contemporary--preferred contemporary to traditional designs and well-designed pages to those of average design. (Reproductions of the four front pages are included.) (GT)

Describes a study that indicated that readers of college newspapers prefer a front page style that is contemporary and emphasizes a horizontal layout to either an avant-garde style that features an entirely horizontal layout or a traditional layout having a vertical page. (TJ)

A survey of 194 graduate students compared the old and new formats of "Esquire" magazine, combining two issues of each format in a sequence of four viewing pairs (to negate possible bias effects of content). The subjects indicated their preferences and reasons for preferences for old and new logos, typefaces, tables of content formats,…

Concludes that children should be encouraged to read since they may prefer an author's word picture to that presented by the visual media and that today's young adults continue to prefer the same types of reading materials as those listed in past surveys. (RL)

Four experiments tested reader reaction to selected newspaper design techniques, including jumps, wraps, type style, and picture size. The results implied that a newspaper striving for the highest overall readership of its stories will get the best results by keeping jumps to a minimum and running larger pictures. (RL)

This report discusses the current state of research into the visual effects of screen layout design, i.e., the arrangement of design elements on a screen. First, two types of design elements are described: technical (those things that engineers work with and that users have little or no control over), and comprehensibility (those elements that a…

The two sections of this report focus on recent research in the newspaper industry. The first section describes changes implemented in the design and layout of a Minnesota daily newspaper and the methodology and results of two surveys of readers' favorable reactions to the changes. The second section is designed to familiarize newspaper people…

Fifty-two subjects participated in a study of attitudes toward typographic treatment in print advertising. Twenty variations of a basic ad layout, based on nine typographic variables (five for display type and four for body copy), were developed to reflect current trends in fashionable/conservative advertising typography. The subjects sorted the…

Advertisers and other mass media communicators are interested in the potential cognitive and affective effects of various graphic designs, specifically relating to the recall of information and the attitude toward information presented. This study deals with the respondent's recall of information contained within an advertisement as well as the…

Using data from a previous study, this study investigated the adoption of modern graphic design techniques by daily newspapers. A scale of modern design was constructed from available literature and tested for internal validity by determining what design practices were included in sample papers. The scale was then used to test assumptions about…

Many typographers have already decided that sans serif type is more pleasing to readers and more functional than traditional roman type. The findings of this study, which was designed to assess the readability of, and reader preference for, these two styles, lead to the opposite conclusion. To determine preferences, 200 subjects of various ages…

Intended for use by both producers and evaluators of textbooks and other print instructional materials, this review of the literature focuses on the effectiveness of illustrations for motivation and for learning, and such typographical variables as readibality, legibility, standard typographical conventions, and format and layout. Areas examined…

A study was conducted to examine newspaper readers' responses to front page design and to explore the perceived differences among traditional, modern, and modular formats of newspaper design. Slides of the front pages of 10 pairs of competing daily newspapers were shown to 91 journalism students. After viewing three slides for each paper, subjects…

Offers summaries of studies that investigated many topics, including the following: (1) images of the United States in Jordanian media; (2) television terms, such as "radiovision," that did not last; (3) how newspapers in Alaska cope with staff turnover; (4) newspaper design preferences among students; and (5) the problem of libel for…