I didn't think it was real, though it was a hoax. Nope. Real: http://www.miaminewtimes.com/Issues/current/news/feature.html

Best line in the story:
"But when Hurricane Wilma blew ashore and crossed Florida in a flash, she was a bitch."

I'm so glad someone got this to you! I was looking for a pdf all weekend and then had a few days off...Not only does this brilliant cover perfectly convey the sentiment down here, but it provided some much needed levity. This is my favorite cover of anything in a long time.

i am sorry but i don’t see the joke in here.

i am from mexico. and, as you know, wilma destroyed cancun a many places in quintana roo and yucatán...

we also know wilma flintstone... and i don’t see any kind of relation between them... ahh, the name, of course!

is it really information design? i think not.

i am sorry but i don’t see the joke in here.

i am from mexico. and, as you know, wilma destroyed cancun a many places in quintana roo and yucatán...

we also know wilma flintstone... and i don’t see any kind of relation between them... ahh, the name, of course!

is it really information design? i think not.

I can understand that to this frontpage provided some 'much needed levity' to the people in the Miami area, but I would agree with the previous poster that this has really very little to do with information design. This really is the kind of dumbing down that I hope will never reach the area where I live, Northern Europe...

Come on folks, that was funny.

Admit it.

P.S. I think it took some stones to put that on the front of a major metro paper.

Well, maybe not major...but still, there's no rule that says information can't be presented in a fun way.

brilliant!

I hope our friends in Mexico and Europe can unclinch their backdoors long enough to see that:

1. This is not a major metro, it's an alt weekly.

2. And, as such, is playing to its role as the paper that will do what the MSM paper in town would never do.

So, in the end, just relax. This is newspapering, at a weekly cycle at that, about as far from "Capital J" Journalism as you can get. It has more to do with emotion than logic.

And frankly, I think it's tremendous.

Stories require different presentation, be it visual or written, for different areas at different times. This certainly wasn't a commentary on what the hurricane did to Mexico. This LOCAL ALT WEEKLY did it's job--connecting to the community and voicing the commentary less spoken.

What sort of licensing do you ask for? Hmmmmm. . .

ok.

it is a local alt newspaper, it is not Journalism, it took some stones to put that on the front of a major metro paper, it did it's job--connecting to the community and voicing the commentary less spoken... but how can a draw of a smiling wilma with te word “bitch” in brush tipography make it brilliant and tremendous?

wiiilmaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

Sorry, but what's next?

If there's going to be another major controversy involving Donald Rumsfeld, will we have alternative local weekly papers putting a picture of Donald Duck on their front pages?

Tremendous, maybee not. Journalism, definetlly not. But as a weekly paper trying to make a connection with a community, Excellent!

By the way if I were walking by and that cover caught my eye.
I'd of bought it.

This was funny, but I wonder if they'll get hit by the people who own the rights to Wilma Flintstone's image? Do corporations protect their rights anymore? This isn't that damaging to the brand, but still, editors beware.

As for Flip's comment, "I hope will never reach the area where I live, Northern Europe..." Gosh, I hope the rest of the world one day can live up to the HIGH journalistic standards of the self-righteous Europeans. By the way, there's not one trashy tabloid paper in Northern Europe? That's quite an achievement.

Except for these...

http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/ (German)
http://www.story.nl/ (Dutch)
http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/pdf5/SWE_AB.pdf (Swedish)
http://www.dagbladet.no/ (Norwegian tabloid)
http://www.newseum.org/media/dfp/pdf5/POL_GP.pdf (Polish)
http://www.sloleht.ee (Estonian)

Where is this pure land where Flip lives?

1. What do you mean it is not journalism? Did I miss the class in J-school where we learned that in order for something to be journalism it had to be pompous and irrelevant to the reader? I think this cover captures the sentiment of weekly's readership towards the hurricane. This weekly is most likely catering to the same demographic that would agree with me that the Onion's 9-11 head line (holy fucking shit!) was the best 9-11 hed. Bastards was a close second.

2. Could they have picked another font? As much as I love the idea, I cannot figure out why that brush script is the appropriate font for it.

yes sara, I think you miss the class.

Sara: Totally agree with you on the Onion headline. And perhaps some of the critical posters have never read the Miami New Times. For the general tone of the paper from week to week, this cover was perfectly in line.

Which, of course, leads to the brush-script font. It's Miami, sweetie, so Wilma HAS to be FABULOUS even when she's being a BITCH! (Love those pearls, too, BTW.) ;-)

Not to start a cross-atlantic war or anything, but I second what Stephen A. said. Should Europe REALLY be taking offense? Geez

Stephen A. and Mike, maybe my comment ("This really is the kind of dumbing down that I hope will never reach the area where I live, Northern Europe...") was indeed a bit self-righteous in its tone. (Please don't think that all Europeans, from Albania to Norway and from Ireland to the Ukraine, are all like me, a Dutchman who moved to Finland a few years ago.)

And ofcourse here in Europe, we have a yellow press as well, working on the sentiments felt by lots of people, sometimes with headlines similar to 'Bitch!' or 'Bastards!'. There's nothing wrong with that. The tabloids reach a section of the general public that otherwise probably wouldn't pick up a newspaper at all.
There are also alternative weekly newspapers here, lots of them (both free and paid publications).

The point I was trying to make, is that the NEWSdesign in NEWSpapers (alternative or mainstream) should support and present news stories in such a way, that the readers are 'drawn into' a written article or portray something that actually happened. And the design should be relevant to the story. Wilma Flintstone is a fictional cartoon character, that, apart from sharing its name with the hurricane, had absolutely nothing to do with what was going on at the time.

If the Miami New Times would have been a comics mag and not a NEWSpaper (alternative or not) or if the story was about the Flintstones or for example the cartoon industry, I would probably have loved this front page.

Hey, but that's the way I see it. Not a major thing. I DO have a life... :-)

(One correction: the Dutch 'Story' that Stephen is referring to is a weekly gossip magazine and not a newspaper or newsmagazine. The Dutch newspaper closest to a tabloid paper, would be De Telegraaf, journalism-wise (but certainly not in its design!) comparable to a mix of perhaps the British Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail, with one daily gossip page. See: http://telegraaf-i.telegraaf.nl/daily/2005/11/8/TE/TE_2S_20051108_1/pagina.php )

flip, i totally agree with you.

As a former resident of Florida and a reader of New Times papers, I'd like to add some perspective here.

There's a lot to criticize New Times about - even evil Gannett doesn't make all of its papers use the same design template - but for what they are, irreverent, apolitical and artsy, they succeeded here. If I lived in Miami and I'd lived through the hell and the nightmare that is a hurricane and its aftermath, and I came across this paper... I would have smiled.

And sometimes, all a paper has to do to succeed is make readers smile.

South Florida residents have the Sun-Sentinel and the Herald for their serious journalism. Let the New Times do what it does best to connect to its readers.

The comments on this blog are evidence of the effectiveness of great design!