nothing like a full, front-page ad. sigh.

Agreed... there's a point when it's no longer a promo, and this page reached and exceeded that point.

You can't tell me a promo for an INSIDE STORY should overpower the 1A lede. If it's that big a deal, run it on 1A to begin with!

Okay, so the half of Kong seems to be him, but I didn't know he had elephant hooves, or whatever those are at the bottom of the page.

My first reaction was that it was neat to package the promo that way, but there is little reason to. I agree with Mr. Jessmer's points.

yikes.

i would have cut it off above the stories. also, the hands at the bottom don't look right. they looks like dian fossey outtakes.

And in case you didn't see the life-size version, there's another image of Kong on top of that rail on the left.

Besides going way, way over the top, the full-page promo dilutes the power of the roaring face at the top. This seems like a pretty egregious example of "because we can" design.

This is scary bad.

Gotta give the designer credit for thinking out of the box, literally. It's not effective in the right way, though.
Just as a page-topper, it could have been pretty cool.

Neat! I mean, OK, this wasn't really the story for it, 'cause c'mon, it's a movie review... but I like the creativity, and the idea might work with something else -- probably not as a promo, though, but as art for the story inside it. Still, with it going behind the banner and everything, it's a cool idea.

I guess David Cross wasn't kidding about the jungle in Lower Manhattan, judging by the bottom of that picture. (What the hell is that?)

That is terrible.

I went to Newseum just to double check and make sure that every newspaper in the country has their picture of Kong over the flag. Check.

Interestingly, I guess this designer didn't have an editor breathing (in this case, bad Ohio air) down his/her neck because there's no way something like this makes it in most places.

Feel bad for the designer, but if you are reading ... don't do this again.

Interestingly, I guess this designer didn't have an editor breathing (in this case, bad Ohio air) down his/her neck because there's no way something like this makes it in most places.

Feel bad for the designer, but if you are reading ... don't do this again.

Yeah, I hate to dogpile, but this is bad. It looks like somebody had a hot idea and then rushed to use it at the first available opportunity, no matter how inappropriate. Although I have a hard time envisioning a time when this kind of treatment really ever would be appropriate at a daily. If management approved this page all around, that's even scarier than the big monkey.

Have never commented here before, but my first reaction was it's compelling -- and quite frankly, I'd buy that newspaper. I'm wondering what the sales were like for that day? Did this "outside the box" thinking sell papers?

I love the concept of it--just think of the possibilities for this type of design when the headline reads "War Over!" or "Coming Home!" Regrettably, now that one paper has done it, we'll likely see it popping up everywhere, for every lead story, over the next year.

As far as it's current use... Maybe I'm being cynical, but I just can't see a maverick designer doing this under an editor's nose. It looks like the paper deliberatly sold the 1A whitespace as ad space.

Tell me it's a joke - some Photoshopped mock-up – and not a real honest-to-God front page of a newspaper.

This kind of whoring so clearly diminishes the news. Can you imagine any of the writers (journalists, but I'll spare you the dictionary definition) saving this page for their portfolios? Can you imagine readers paying any attention to the actual news content, which has been so carefully tucked into its tiny compartments on the front page?

Maybe, if Christ returned, this kind of space use would be OK. But a movie review?

No! No! No!

The thing that really bugs me (aside from the concept) is the execution. It looks like the bottom of the Kong image is different than the top. The feet/hands look off, and well, it looks like a really bad Photoshop job to me -- two images meshed together.

Oh, brother.
Newspaper design needs its own version of Razzies.

Yikes! All I could do is laugh.

That, and think, "No wonder Ohio's air is so bad. You smelled Kong's breath lately?"

This is exactly the sort of thing "word people" dread from design-gaga editors, too many of whom have not only drank the Kool-Aid, but licked the pitcher dry. If I had a story on this page, I'd be horrified.

Dare I say it? This is the worst case of "Picasso for a Day" commercialism I have ever seen. Is there a DDN line between the ad department and the editorial department? Not today, it seems. Looks like ol' Robert would be quite obnoxiously vindicated -- if he were allowed to post here.

Dayton has relatively insignificant single copy sales, so front page design would do nothing to increase sales.

To many designers and editors are worried about what the paper looks like in the newsstand that they forget that 85% of the people have already decided they want the paper delivered to their home - even if the front page design is krap, like this one.

I'm so proud of the posters that nobody said this designer went ape-shit.

Speaking as a native Ohioan, I can assure you the air isn't bad in Ohio. Well, maybe in Cincinnati, but that's not really in Ohio -- it's in Kentucky. Yee-haw! (Dayton's not that far away from Cincy, though.)

I'm a word guy who has written his share of bad air and shopping stories. Believe me when I say the King Kong art is the most interesting thing on the page.

I keep forgetting how everyone posting here and reading the posts are perfect and have done nothing but great work her/his whole career.

Please remember someone worked very hard on this page for one reason or another. How about showing some sensitivity in your comments? How about showing some constructive criticism to help this designer become better? (very few have, yes) How about uplifting the creativity of this person, but teaching to harness the creativity in a effective, yet still bold?

The only "sickening" here are the majority nasty comments without the fortitude to help and teach.

Here's an interesting idea: Ask some readers what they thought of the page.

My problem with the Newspaper Design Orthodoxy is that it's a closed world of elitists talking amongst themselves. Obviously, "good design" has not kept newspaper circulations from plummeting.

Maybe "krap" like this might help. Maybe not. But something should be tried besides "let's make all the pages look the same as all the pages in the SND book, where all the pages have looked the same since 1985."

If you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk

Ah, I see the Dayton people have found us. KM and Goheen, you should be embarassed. You're a laughing stock.

If you're making critical comments anonymously, you're a coward.

On either side. Just stop it.

Post it under your name or add your e-mail to the post.

Failure to sign your name to something in a public forum is just crap.

My two cents: It's wayyyyyyyy too much. It's a hollywood movie, for pete's sake. When's the last time a piece of original content got this kind of play in the Daily News?

Huh. It appears that the e-mail link is turned off. Posting again with my full name.

Yeah, Steve, that e-mail link went away when I upgraded awhile back. I haven't gotten around to figuring out how to switch that back.

Forget the King Kong device. It's masking the fact there is no news in Dayton. Half of the "real" front page is dominated by a huge photo and story saying that retailers want -- gasp! -- to sell things.

I don't like the side gutters and the feet look strange to me.

If it was just a head-and-shoulders Kong above the type block, it would look better.

I'd give the idea a thumbs up. It's visually striking and interesting. I'm sure it will be one of the most talked-about editions of the Dayton paper for some time.

I think it's petty they took the AP guy's byline off the bad-air story, since AP did all the story research and the Dayton staff did nothing.

Great design work! But check out King Kong on the dollar . . .

I think the critical question regarding this front page is whether the giant ape is an advertisement. If it is an ad, then I and many other newspaper traditionalists will bemoan it -- the cover of a newspaper is always for news, no matter how much a sponsor is willing to pay you to make your front page a farce.

If this is not an advertisement, on the other hand, the decision to go with the ape is much more defensible and in fact may be commended. The newspaper undoubtedly stuck out on newsstands (I wonder what the Dayton Daily News single sales looked like today). The design, if it is not an ad, at least shows a boldness and a "thinking outside the box" all too infrequently shown by the generally conformist, copycat media. Whether you like the ape or not and whether it was successful or not, the Dayton Daily News took a chance on a bold design -- and in the declining print media market, why not take a chance?

If this is a design and not an ad, my foremost complaint is that the ape reared his head at the wrong time. Bold designs such as these are better suited to weekend editions, when news is slow and the newspaper generally takes more of a newsmagazine feel. I would not want to risk belittling an important A1 story with a design many may find amateurish or gimmicky. Suppose the mayor died and an important news cover was wrapped in ape -- it would almost certainly be a heavy blow to credibility.

In response to the comment arguing against the importance of single-copy sales: While single copy sales nearly always constitute a minimal percentage of circulation, they remain an important part of expanding readhership. People buying at the newsstands are people that do not subscribe to the newspaper. If they pick your newspaper off of the stand, you have a chance to convince them a subscription is worthwhile. Single copy sales are almost negligible in terms of generating revenue for a single day but are vital to broadening circulation.

Journalistic integrity aside...
How many copies did it sell? In an age where newspaper readership is usurped by online news aggragators and 24hr news channels, I have to applaud any outlet that finds a way to generate buzz and promote readership. Especially when it appears to be a relatively slow news day. Besides, entertainment news is still news and this story lends itself to a sensational graphic like no other has before it.

Well, come on now, Doug. What if the mayor died and an important news cover was wrapped in ape? I think maybe if the mayor of Dayton died, they might have decided not to go with the full-page promo here.

That said, the IDEA itself here isn't... awful. I agree that it would have worked ever-so-much better if this had been a bulldog edition, or if the cover was all promos. Having actual news floating on top of King Kong feels really, really... odd.

And while I won't pan the idea entirely, the execution, in my opinion, leaves a lot to be desired. This is one of those ideas that only works if you go all out (and even then, maybe - probably, even - it still doesn't work).

Lose the weirdly distracting "hooves" at the bottom of the page and have King Kong's hands wrap around the white box that holds the rest of the page, perhaps.

To me, the promo space at the top of the page has a helluva lot of impact, but once you get below the cropped-off mouth, the image becomes meaningless.

It's like when some papers (mine included) run a white box on top of a photo, so as to keep that pesky type legible, and there ends up only a few picas of that photo around three edges. Well, that clearly adds nothing. Time to re-think when you've backed yourself into that corner.

Would I have devoted this much space to a movie with no local angle, if I was working at any newspaper in the country? Absolutely not, unless I was at, maybe, the L.A. Daily News. And thankfully I'm not.

Phew... that's a mouthful, and especially to those folks coming to this item from outside the design world. Anyway, as always, just my $0.02. Keep the ideas coming, Goheen & Co.

Consider this:

The people reading and commenting on this post work in the newspaper industry. Newspaper circulation is on the decline, and has been for decades. The people responsible for this decline -- or, at least, not overcoming it -- are deeply offended by this front page.

Looks like Dayton did something right.

King Kong is what people in Dayton (and across the country) were talking about on Wednesday. A newspaper's job is to inform and unite the people in its community, and to report on topics of interest and importance to them. The Dayton Daily News has done that, and probably increased its readership, too.

You're right, TBall, the Dayton Daily News probably would have ditched the ape if the mayor died -- that's presuming it is not an ad.

I used a drastic example but the point is that a design bordering on gimmicky can quickly undermine the credibility and perceived importance of other stories on the front -- which is why I would like to see it on a weekend, when readers expect a different kind of approach.

That being said, it's still visually unappealing.

Hey anonymous Fred (and I hope you're not Fred Marion, because I thought you were nicer than that)...

We're a laughingstock amongst who? The designers and journalists (and their vaunted traditions) that have driven the newspaper industry into the ground with their SND-approved cookie cutters and brain-numbing process stories?

Perhaps the stockholders who want to toss Knight-Ridder on the auction block think we're buffoons.

Perhaps Fox News thought we didn't go far enough.

And perhaps all the Romanesko-reading ivory-tower-dwellers think we sold the space to Peter Jackson -- like his world-wide publicity machine knows or cares we exist. (What we *really* need is to get the giant animated monkey to endorse newspaper readership -- said monkey needs no help from us promoting his too-long movie).

I don't think many readers (if any) called up offended (I've been on vacation this week, so I don't know for sure). Maybe some were intrigued. Maybe some were puzzled. Most probably went on their merry way without giving it a second thought.

Something like this being "controversial" shows the moribund, doctrinaire state of the industry....just like those "redesigns" featured a little ways down the page where there's very little change from "before" to "after."

What do readers want? What's important to them? Are we making a connection with them? Ask those questions, not "should the monkey hooves be two picas deeper?"

This just in: Single-copy sales saw a boost on the 'Kong' cover day.

I'll start with the full disclosure: Mike Goheen is one of my dearest friends, and I'm a huge fan of him and his work.

I think this page was a bad idea, and I would have said so had he asked me. (Not that my opinion is worth a pound of Ohio's bad air.)

But here's what I'd like to focus on: at least it was an idea. We need ideas, badly. Wonderful ideas, spectacularly bad ideas, ideas that move us an inch or a mile.

I won't speak for Mike, but I suspect that's what he's saying. The words might come out a bit better if his neck weren't being stood on by folks who think the Dayton Daily News set fire to the First Amendment.

looks like a bad webpage from 1996

Change, whether we like it or not, is the only thing that stands a chance at saving newspapers.

Clearly the ape did his job. You're all talking about the 'Dayton Daily News,' right? If newspapers are to survive that's what has to happen. People have to want to talk about, know about and most importantly, buy a newspaper.

And I'll admit it's not perfect, but it's better than some boring cover that no one has any desire to pick up.

You may not like it, and you may not have bought if you lived here, but you're thinking about it. The 'DDN' is on your mind right now. Mission accomplished.

It's sellout-itis. First Star Wars, now King Kong. Next up: Harry Potter. Oh wait, that happened too.

Do any of you all who were in Houston remember Martin Gee's talk? "The Texas Photoshop Massacre"?

This would have been a fantastic slide for Martin to have used. It's a fantastic idea in some ways -- it makes the front page jump, it's a teaser that really breaks out of the box -- but it's almost suicidal from the perspective of an illustration, with stories just kind of floating on top of it, disembodied. (I think it would've been more successful at three-quarters height with a rail teaser above the fold, or maybe just a tabloid-style front with big teasers, rather than a compromise like this. But that's just my opinion, and I wasn't there to say anything.)

I think the Dayton people deserve serious kudos for going out on a limb like this. I just think, sometimes, you have to back off, and if you don't, you get something like this...

I feel like they had a fine idea, with the dominant King Kong promo, but extending the promo down the sides of the page and the bottom is going too far, IMO. If they just cut it off beneath the flag, it accomplishes its goal of having a dominant impact in the rack and increasing single sales copies without taking away from the legitimate news in the paper that day. Right idea, just took it too far.

This page came from idea about a week before the movie opened - from an individual artist in the art department - NOT an A1 or other page designer - realizing that perhaps this was an event that might justify doing something a bit different. An above the mast or even behind the mast promo to the review would not really have been that unusual for our newspaper - this idea was. It was both welcomed, encouraged and subjected to intense scrutiny and debate by upper management and staff, who, to their credit, in the end said: "This is a relatively slow news day, there is nothing else on the page today that will be diminished by this treatment, so, what the hell, let's walk the walk. We've got 364 other days this year when this probably wouldn't work. Go for it." I only hope that everyone posting here has an opportunity to work in the kind of culture where individual creativity is encouraged to this degree and where a risk will be taken every now and then. I can also assure all the "serious journalists" here that had anything happened in the news cycle that would have rendered this page offensive to READERS, it would have been pulled in an instant without a second thought. I, like Mike, was on vacation, but knew this was coming, offered whatever specific reproduction advice that I thought was appropriate, and congratulate whole-heartedly every person who had a hand in making it happen.

News magazines devote their entire cover to movies and actors. What's the big deal? At least they still had news on the cover...

i just might wes. ;) i totally commend the effort of this though. we don't do enough risk-taking. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. it's already bird cage liner, let's move on. at least it was bold despite some technical things such as the feathered edges and wildebeest hooves.

check out the recent feature pages on npd. there are a lot of kong pages. some good and some not so good. what brings this one so much attention is the "sanctity" of the front page. damn, also get mentioned on romanesko will get you 50+ comments.

thinking about this more, i would still only have the head and shoulders or a massive 2 column refer with kong huge at the top. i believe it's the border / wrapping around all the stories irks people the most. slow newsday or not, people need that separation. also the thin strip violates the "news space."

in the next edition of tim harrower's 'the newspaper designer's handbook,' forget the cosby and leno variations, make it the king kong variations. =)

I'm the artist who designed this behind the page promo.
Its not an ad, for those who keep wondering.
While reactions have been mixed, they have certainly been extreme on either side. In other words, there was a strong reaction, and single copy sales jumped, I am told.
When in the news meeting, an editor wanted to do something big for the opening of King Kong. I sketched out a rough where the front page was encased by the body of the ape.
I pitched it without some trepidation, because it was definitely thinking outside the box. But, we are in the process of reinventing the paper. We are being told to think bold visually and think of new ways to draw in readers. I felt this concept could do just that.
An editor liked the concept at that meeting and asked me to draw up a mockup, which I did a few days before rundate. That editor then showed it to other editors. After a lot of discussion it was given a green light.
Interestingly, at the last minute, it was going to be abandoned unless one editor could see the bottom of the ape's body. My original usage called for the bottom half of the page to be mostly obscured, with just a hint visually to know the picture was back there.
By stretching the bottom of the art, I felt it showed too much and not enough of the HANDS (not feet, it was the hands on knuckles) too much so that it was distracting, and not enough to be able to discern for sure it was hands. So that criticism that many have made on this blog that the bottom of the art doesn't work, I agree with, because it was not used as intended.

That aside, however, I felt the part that was visible in the box was arresting and would encourage people to stop and look at the paper and possibly buy it. If reports are accurate, that is exactly what happened.

I think the concern of blurring between a promo and an ad is an interesting and valid topic to discuss. I think its interesting because this wasn't an ad, and in fact, when the editor wanted to extend the bottom of the photo, to do so they decided not to use an ad already on the front page. We are putting strip ads on the bottom of section fronts now, so the idea this broke some hallowed rubric of propriety is moot, even if it were an ad, which it wasn't.

Thinking outside the box, literally, is a risk. I've worked with many talented designers in my career, and the ones that are more successful are the ones that ask "why not?".

I have appreciated reading the comments here, at least those that had substance rather than ridicule. Design is a constant learning process. Often when we stick our necks out, there is no shortage of people wanting to slice it off. But, at the same time, behold the turtle, who makes no progress until he sticks his neck out.

if any of you wish to ...ahem...posit opinions on the rest of my work, you can find it at www.bzart.com

thanks!

Well, all I know is that the page made me smile. If one of our designers had brought it to me, I don't know that I would have approved it. But I would have thanked them for trying. Or maybe I would have been in one of those moods and said let's tweak it a bit and give it a shot.

However, after reading some of these really mean comments, I'm liking the page a lot more. Hey, the idea didn't work for some of you and so be it. It's not the end of the newspaper world as we know it.

I wouldn't say it's the greatest newspaper front page I've ever seen, but I've certainly seen a whole lot worse. 

To the Dayton folks, I say nice effort. If nothing else, you got people talking about your product. And if they are talking about it, maybe some of them will go out and buy a copy or two.

Reading all the carping and bellyaching on this thread makes me wonder: Do journalists have no joi de vivre? We fret about whether they might see the King Kong refer first instead of a collection of desiccated news stories written in the 50-watt hum voice of a golf announcer. Well, millions of people are going to go see that movie this weekend and like it, and they are going to like it more than any boring news story in that paper. It surprised readers, looked different -- even if the execution could have been better -- and tried something new. Yes, they published this page and the Earth still turns. Imagine that.

Hard to say something that hasn't been said before about this page, but we did something radical here about 3 months ago for our 125th birthday that was similar to this in idea. We designed the page just like it would've been designed in 1881. No pictures, 8 col. grid with 1 coloum stories everywhere.

And you know what, our single sales went up — and from what I've been told, it was a noticeable bump.

In my opinion, it wasn't cause it was well done or exciting, it was because it was different. Arresting if you will.

I don't really care if this page was well done or not — I'm too far removed from the market and the decision — but I really think it's a good idea to keep searching and fishing for new readers with creative ideas.

Yes, what's up with the hooves? I mean, if you're going to sell the newspaper out to the Peter Jackson-hype machine, get the feet right. Or maybe this is what the Devil demanded when he asked for full frontal sell-out in return for the Dayton designer's asking price. The Devil's in the details, as they say. What was the asking price, you ask? I assume that all newspapers do this regularly, to save us ALL from dwindling demand. Ha! Just kidding, even Lucifer wouldn't take that offer up. My source in Heaven heard this is a good way to keep circ numbers in Limbo, however.

jerry said: "News magazines devote their entire cover to movies and actors. What's the big deal? At least they still had news on the cover..."

Do we really want to become TIME, Newsweak, or, for that matter, Vanity Fair or Details?

Proudly posting anonymously,
As is my First Amendment right, no matter how much some of the Design Bloc hates it,
publius

Well, I liked the idea. It actually peaked interest in the paper. I got a little confirmation on that when a friend of mines who is not a journalist and is a person who DOESN'T read our paper said it actually made him "read the damn thing." LOL!!!

It seems like everyone who is so critical of it may be a little mad that they didn't have this "out of the box" idea first. Like the teenagers say, "don't be a hater!"

Hindsight is always 20/20. I hope you remember the DDN when you copy this and I hope we continue to take chances, our industry needs it. Great job, John!

It was definately a risk worth taking. Personally I think the design needed to be cleaned up a little, bit congrats on stepping out and doing something bold. Here's the deal people, circulation is going down and we have to compete with Internet, TV, satellite radio, iPod, PSP and whetever handheld device will be popular next week. To survive (and be relevant) as an industry we have to get away from the "sanctity of 1A" type of thinking and make readers notice us.

To John Hancock: I love the idea behind this page. keeping thinking out of the box, the gutter, or even the page! damn, wish i thought of this -- although i probably wouldn't have used it on A1. one thing's certain: it sure ain't a boring page.

If this had been page one of the entertainment section, I could see the point. But to put that on page one of the news section is ridiculous.

Whoever gets the most eyeballs, wins - QED.

Personally I just love the visual humour in the positioning of the lead article. Giant ape, eats airplanes or who knows what, never flosses; he's roaring & air pollution is soaring. I once met a pro linebacker with the same problem. Similar lifestyle too, come to think of it. Anyone have stats on pro sports demographics by state? We may be onto something here.. maybe even get funding, you never know :)

oh for god's sake: it's just one front page of one newspaper, in dayton, ohio, of all places. sure, i guess it could look like a free ad, as if the rest of the nation's media haven't fallen all over themselves also writing about this one movie. if it sold a few more papers, why not? either way, no one's going home richer or poorer because a pic of a gorilla was wrapped around the 'important,' - zzzzzzz - 'news' of the day.

"Newspaper circulation is on the decline, and has been for decades. The people responsible for this decline -- or, at least, not overcoming it -- are deeply offended by this front page. Looks like Dayton did something right."

And looks like a lot of the designers on this board are in a lather over it. Wonderful. Keep designing pages the way you always have (maybe ... gasp ... change a font or two) and expect different results and what do you have? The presentation corollary to the journalistic definition of insanity.

The execution could have been better, but kudos to someone for trying something new.

Do people still read newspapers? Don't they have the internets in Ohio?

I feel like I was out of the country when 9/11 happened or something.

Someone much smarter than me wrote on a message board similar to this that all the redesigns and changing from broadsheet to tab can happen and newspaper circulation numbers keep dropping. Redesigns, this person wrote, are like putting a new suit on a corpse (I love that). It still looks good, but continues to rot from the inside. Translation: It's about content. Give people something cool to look at always, but to get them to stay the stories have to be interesting.

This design idea works. It does.

It's the stories on the page that are boring. All of them. And we all suffer from this. All of us.

Too many good comments on this, so I won't repeat what's been said.

To sum it up, I applaud the innovation and spirit of 'just going for it,' but I'm not sure this was the one to go this crazy over. If Dayton had some tie to Kong, I could roll with it, but what happens when there's something bigger or cooler inside? Going this big for one movie is a tough act to follow. If it were me, I would have done the page to get it approved, and then socked it away in my bag of tricks and saved it for when something really special happened inside.

I bet if you took a survey of people who didn't like it versus who did, and tied that in with who had seen the movie, and who hadn't -- you might find a trend towards liking it more if you'd seen the movie. I saw the movie the other night, and it's bloody fantastic -- and well-deserving of such a great review promotion. Good job!

Good, bad or indifferent, it's making people, whether in the industry or not, talk about that day's paper....which they didn't do the day before or the day after. So, YAY.

It has a little of the panache of Joseph Pulitzer's "The World on Sunday." I can't wait to see what they do with "Pride & Prejudice."

Approximately 20 years ago, the paper I used to work for in Ireland ran a wrap-around advertising cover designed to mimic the front page (the real front page was underneath) from a political party on the day before an election. Mmm... impartial. This cover at least has some real content - I don't really see what the problem is. How is this different to a normal FP ad? Good point that it would have been more effective just as the head, though.

One thing I learned during stints at a couple of tabloids is that a really different cover can increase street sales, but it is a temporary spike. There is no lasting effect unless you commit yourselves to a freak show every day, and if you do that, you're probably going to gross out a significant number of advertisers and replace loyal, thinking readers with fickle, highly transient customers who bought the paper only because it appealed to their sense of the bizarre. We ought to consider how tabloids are doing these days as businesses before we try to mimic them.

It got our attention for being really different, and what could newspapers need more than a new approach to reaching readers? I'm not a fan of the constant publicity filler that makes up so much of what is deemed "news," and I couldn't tell initially whether the design was for an ad or for a review, but I think the design idea could be polished into something that grabs readers' attention, moves them emotionally and gets them to start buying and reading the paper.

I think the idea was a good one - we've slowly been getting bigger and bigger with entertainment news (especially new movie promos, because they have great visuals to play with), and this is kicking it up a notch. Is this the right movie to do this with? The buzz for Kong is about as big as it gets - I know I can't wait to see it. I can't think of many movies that you could have done this with. Darth Vader for "Revenge of the Sith," maybe - and then maybe not, because the prequels were so crapped on.
The execution hangs me up. Kong's head looks warped, and I can't figure out his feet. Maybe instead of trying to create "feet," you could have included some of the other characters looking up the page at Kong?
It's got a few flaws - but keep pushing. That kind of ballsy innovation helps us all.

I loved your big ape and wanted to see more of him. Or was it her? Who can tell when some idiot put all those letters in the way? Whatever happened to full disclosure?
Aaron Epstein

Great design! If newspapers were this imaginative every day - in all aspects of newsgathering and production - we'd all be better off.

Different. No one's ever tried anything like this before that I can recall. It's over the top, outside the box. What upsets me the most is that people look at different and outside the box and condemn it as bad and disastrous. They see change as something awful. To me, it's nice to see someone trying something innovative for a change. Do it again.

I love it. It's creative and I like the way it looks. King Kong is a historic pop-culture figure like Frankenstein (who would also look great like this); there's no shame it camping it up playfully. I bet the "younger readers" we desperately try to woo all the time liked it too.
Thanks for taking the risk.

Mike wants to know if anyone asked any readers what they thought? Well I did.

I work at the DDN, but I am also a reader, one who didn't know this front page was coming until I picked it up of the doorstep. At first, I'll admit I was fairly horrified. My first thought was "I hope we got paid for this thing because that is the best goddam ad I have ever seen!"

But the more I looked at it, the more it grew on me. It is very visually stunning at the top (the "feet" bugged me too). And my kids, ages 7, 5 and 3, absolutely thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen in the paper. One of my best friends told me his sons, ages 17 and 16, thought it was the coolest thing they'd ever seen in the paper.

Then that night, my wife was hosting her book club. Eight women, all daily subscribers. I asked them for their reactions. Five said they hated it. Mostly, they said they thought it was an inappropriately overblown ad or they were just confused by it. Three said they loved it. They said they thought it was different or just cool looking.

Now, we could run a picture of a naked woman on page one and that would be "different" and drive up newstand sales too. So different for different's sake isn't reason enough to do something radical. But in this case, we tried something different but within reason that let's say maybe a third of readers thought was really cool. That might be enough of an argument to try it again.

This reminds me of when we first began running anonymous "speak up'" comments on our editorial page. Like others in the newsroom, I hated it. I thought it was an abomination to run opinion on our pages from people who were too gutless to put their names with it.

But you know what? I found I read the dang thing every day. If a hot debate was going on in the community, I sometimes read speak up first. Eventually I came to terms with the fact that I liked speak up as a reader, and therefore it probably was good for the paper.

For those who hated the Kong page, I suppose you can blame me for not turning in a story that day that was so important our editors were afraid to overpower it with a big ape.

I applaud the risk. I am up and down about how it worked out, but I think if newspapers were willing to break the mold more often, people might care more about them. I'm sure the readers in Dayton will remember this more than if they had stuck a big promo at top, or even if they had a nice section front for it. And I doubt it will ever happen that someone will use King Kong to seriously attack their credibility (outside of these circles, at least).

Bakersfield only 1/2 liked it - only half their flag was over KK's nostils.

Check out newseum.org for the front page

Sorry to disrupt the fascinating flow of conversation here.

But... correct me if I'm wrong, Mark... but I think the good ol' Dayton Daily News post has set a new record for number of comments on this here dudernet site.

"I'm Tim Ball. I go on vacation Europe so I can read the News-Designer."

Where are you now? London? Amsterdam? Go out! Grab a pint! Or a ... you know ... whatever it is they grab in Amsterdam.

Ahem.

I'm looking at the page right now. It's very bold, and it's doing its job in that it is stopping eyes. The more eyes stopped, the more likely it is to sell. Surely, even the elitists on this site can understand that.

People don't read the paper anymore because it is so predictable. Kudos to John for helping bump DDN's numbers for that day.

This was a one-day endeavor, people. Everyone's freaking out over what is basically, a border. God forbid someone ever takes a risk again, and border a 1a.

Why, yes, Mr. Tim Ball, you are correct! Take the rest of the week off and go to Amsterdam!

Let's get one thing straight. What journalists are doing or not doing really is not having a major effect on circulation. It ridiculous to say so. Circulation is dropping because the industry is caught in a natural migration of information consumption to the Internet. The Dayton Daily News could have the best designed newspaper in the world (I think they allegedly did once) and its circulation would still plummet. As a profession, we need to spend less time worrying about the page or the story of the day and more time thinking about how to make money on the Net and connect our print and web products.

This shit truly is bananas! I just want to say much love to D-town for finally giving me the props I deserve. I didn't rate above a mugshot in my hometown "Skull Island Weekly Shopper."

I couldn't read all the comments. It seems that many have forgeten that free content is paid for by advertisment. Bring on the creativity and keep my content free!

I'm also a newspaper editor. I might have said the full body is too much, but how about a gorilla fix reaching out from the right and "grabbing" the above-fold copy, this giving the wrinkled page a bit of 3-D.

I would argue this would be more dramatic in its simplicity.

What, a newspaper having fun? NOOOOOOOOO......
What? Other editors nitpicking?

My news instinct says gorilla scales tall buildings deserves some play. Seriously, though, this is no different than the kind of stuff newspapers resulted to back when cities had multiple dailies all trying to trump one another on the street, look at the book The World on Sunday. F**king designers sit around b*tch about newspapers lacking a pulse, falling into the same, tired cliches, both editorially and presentation-wise. Then, when someone does something different, everyone pisses and moans about it. It's one day out of 365. If this is a mistake, then, well, guess what, there's still 364 chances to get it right. Personally, I would have cut Kong off after the nameplate. It still would have the same impact in the box, spiking street sales, but that's my subjective opinion. Remember design is subjective. News judgement is subjective. Most things in life are subjective. And as far as undermining some sense of journalistic credibility, you might want to look around. There's an a**load of things happening in the industry that's undermining newspapers more so than one, big ape. Get the monkey off ya back, yo.

It has been interesting to watch the reaction to this page, and I believe it ultimately confirms something that I've suspected for some time. There pretty much seems to be two disparate basic design philosophies in newspapers today. One believes that using Photoshop as a tool on news pages is an acceptable -- and even encouraged -- practice. The other philosophy believes this is unacceptable. I'm not saying one or the other is correct. But I imagine that the people who support the efforts behind this design generally work at papers that encourage headlines reversed out of news photos, pictures interacting with the masthead, etc. Those who find this most ghastly are schooled in the opposing design approach. Although maybe not executed as well as it could have been, it's hard to say this page is "wrong" simply because its design philosophy goes against what you might have at your paper. I suppose that all good designers need to test the limits. It's what makes us tick. Sometimes we may push beyond acceptable limits. But its important to realize that, no matter your personal philosphy, you can learn from the other. Now, let's all join hands and sing Kumbaya.

I think this is a great thing, and it's good to see that there are still some newspapers willing to try something new.

I remember 30 years ago when the local paper started using color photos on the front page. A lot of stuck up newspaper folks said it ruined the credibility of the paper. Reminds me a lot of the early posters in this thread who seem to think that moving a border up 3 points is a big deal. Get over it. Those folks are clearly not creative, and it's refreshing to see creativity still exists somewhere in the newspaper world.

Just one more large reminder about what huge whores now run newspapers.

Somebody deserves props for surprising their audience.

For all of you haters, when was the last time YOUR paper really surprised your readers visually on A1?

Can't remember? Didn't think so.

My three cents.

1. Instead of the hooves, (as already suggested) why not have characters from the movie looking up at Kong from the bottom of the page?

2. Instead of the "hooves" (imo the worst thing about this page) have Kong's hands reaching around both sides of the pag, but no wrinkle over actual story text - maybe on a headline or cutline.

The mockup is great - I'd run it. The final - not so much.

Rip on it all you want, but it's still probably more creative than what *you* put out that day. Does it have flaws? Yes.

And people are wondering where all the good 1A design has gone... ideas get beaten to death until peeps are afraid to try anything and then people pounce on things they don't like when someone does.

Give him a break. I've definitely seen worse.

I'm no expert in visual design, but in college I was involved in advertising for student orgs. When we put a flier on an already over-populated bulletin board it usually disappeared amongst the cacophony. The only way to win was to make your design significantly loud. I love this for that reason. If you were to lay out a hundred different papers around it, it would still stick out.

Additionally, the columns look like building shapes to me and it cracks me up envision Kong climbing them. Want to take it further? Adjust the column tops to look like a sky line.

Does this make Kong an environmental activist?

One question:

was there any other newspaper in the country that had a front page as talked about as this one? That's what newspapers need to do — get more people talking about them. And that's what Dayton did, in an effective way. I don't see this as much of a risk. But I do see why traditional journalists still caught up in the designs and decision making processes of the last 50 years would see it as such.

Oh, and be sure to puke when you see the cover of Rolling Stone this week...

Wow. 100 comments. When was the last time you saw this?

Kudos for thinking outside the box. It's not my favorite page, in terms of visual appeal, but who wouldn't stop to at least pick up the paper that day? Keep pressing the envelope, Dayton.

To all the haters: You're just jealous because you didn't think of it first :-)

Hater in the house.

I have nothing to contribute. I just wanted to say that.

I think it's fun and grabs the reader who would have just walked by the traditional, typical paper. I appreciate the designers thinking out of the box.

Some things in news design remain "outside the box" for a reason. Not just because they are tacky or indulgent, but because they erase the lines between advertising and editorial.
The worst outside-the-boxers run the risk of turning their newspapers into little more than junk mail.
A better catch phrase for this? How about "jumping the shark."

I think it behooves us as an industry to make sure the "box" we're so afraid to go outside of is not a sealed casket.
Rigidity in thinking puts us further and further away from relevance to the reader, who know nothing about and could care less concerning ivory tower academic strictures within the industry.
Being at the center of this tempest over one page, I'm both surprised and concerned. This one page is neither the death-knell of journalistic integrity nor the saviour of circulation revenues. Its just an idea I had to make an eye-catching promo.

However, I am concerned about our profession if our supposedly most creative minds remain content to run down the same rat-paths in the same mazes of design. Why would we be surprised, then, when readers yawn and find other, more exciting things to do?

Its interesting you use the phrase "jump the shark", since that refers to something old and worn out that has outlived it usefulness. Since many here have said they would never think to, nor allow themselves to do the same thing as the King Kong front promo implies instead a new idea that hasn't been tried before or much.

It was never my intention to start a war between integrity and relevance, but it is interesting nonetheless. I never realized it until now, but it appears the inability to think outside the box is the gene on our dna which may render the newspaper an extinct species.

John, I realize you didn't invite all these comments. I apologize for the digs.

Thanks, but on the whole I found the digs very interesting, as they raise important issues. If nothing else, they are a good barometer on how people think about the profession in general as much as this particular page -- a robust debate of value to nearly everyone who reads it, no matter their take on it.
I learned a lot. It was all useful.
I and others at the paper also received emails of support for sticking our necks out from far-flung locations.
I've been a graphic designer/illustrator for nearly 30 years, and it took this one page to shake everybody up! go figure.

Yikes! Guess some people can get quite nasty when online and anonymous. Some of these comments are a bit over the top and insensitive.

I wrote much earlier and have just revisited to see what others have written.
I commend the page designer for trying something new. I still do not like it. But no, it will not in and of itself herald the death of journalism. It is just one front page in Ohio.

But the debate (such as it is) it has created is a good thing.

I work around a bunch of marketing people. They all said with certainty that the image of King Kong JUST HAD to have been paid for.

That is what troubles me, not the hooves (we all have deadlines and all have deisgns we wish we could revisit and finish).

No, what bothers me is that people (smart, educated, media savvy folk) see this as an ad. Who can blame them? Product placement has become so common (even authors inserting product names into their books for pay) that it doesn't seem all that crazy to imagine that space being bought and paid for (and therefore, available to the highest bidder).

Yes, we sell entertainment and information, but our mission is more than that. A democracy depends on a free press, which depends upon a committed readership.

Which depends on a credible and trustworthy media.

And even if it just looks like we've sold out, the harm is significant.

You've seen the cover, now let's examine the innards - The Bleat goes on: Today's installment from the DDN using the same headline used Dec. 15.

Ron Rollins: Oh my God, they killed Kong!
By Ron Rollins

Dayton Daily News

You've already heard that Peter Jackson's new King Kong is good, but I'll go further: It's one of the four or five best movies I've ever seen.
A hundred years from now, when cultural scholars are writing the history of American cinema, they will have to bookend Hollywood's longest-running era, the Age of the Brainless Blockbuster, with the film that ushered it in, and the one that declared it dead.

It's more than just an instant classic. It's historic. Like Picasso's first jab at Cubism or Pollock dripping paint, it is that rare work of art that drops the gate with a resounding crash upon all that came before it, simultaneously opening a new era in which nothing is, or should be, as it was before.

In fact, the original Kong accomplished much the same thing in 1933 — it cast a movie mold that lasted more than 70 years.

Merian C. Cooper used the very best filmmaking technology of his day — primarily stop-action photography and animated miniatures — to great effect. The pleasure of the original wasn't the paint-by-numbers, beauty-killed-the-beast storyline; it was the sight of the monster, so realistic and frightening. Audiences who'd never witnessed such a spectacle ate it up. It deserves its classic status.

But there was a catch. Nobody loves the original for its acting, complex plotting or sophisticated character development. In fact, those are all laughable or absent. They weren't necessarily, and might even have distracted from the ape — so why bother?

And so King Kong set a standard that has dominated movies, more or less, right up to this day: Make the FX big, big, big, and keep the story and players dumb, dumb, dumb.

I'm generalizing a bit, but moviegoers know that's Hollywood's basic formula for box-office bonanza, racheting up a bit more every summer with each new Bruckheimeresque blastfest. They roar their way into the nearest megaplex — generating hype, making noise, racking up a quick one-weekend gross and slinking into Blockbuster a few months later, while most of us know that somehow, we just didn't get our money's worth. The occasional exceptions, such as Titanic, merely prove the rule.

Until now, that is. Jackson's King Kong has rewritten those rules.

Jackson, too, has used the most up-to-date filmmaking technology, and has done so better than anyone. From the brilliant digital recreation of 1930s Manhattan to the amazing portrayal of Kong, his film is a marvel.

But that's beside the point — which is the point. The new Kong is more than its FX. It's got intelligence, emotion and heart. Naomi Watts' ability to convey Ann Darrow's friendship with Kong is convincing and real, one of the toughest — and, frankly, unlikeliest — acting breakthroughs in years. The movie is more about her than the monster, in the end, because of Jackson's reimaging of the story and her ability to deliver the goods he demanded.

What Jackson has made is something brand new: A $200-million FX-driven blockbuster in which the FX are nearly invisible, and in which relationships not only drive and underpin the action — they matter more. It works so well, and raises the bar so high, that we should never again have to settle for less.

Ron Rollins' column on arts and culture runs Sundays. Contact him at 225-2165 or rrollins@daytondailynews.com.