PLA ....... GIA ....... RISM

(let the debate begin)......

Still waiting for the design community to embrace the subtly complex "lukewarm B" ... ;-)

Haha... yeah, doesn't this constitute plagiarism?

Actually, I am quite surprised: When is the last time the V-P copied anyone else's style? This is unprecedented (and I'm not saying this in a negative way ... just shocked).

Two of the three newspapers above were designed by Lucie Lacava and her team: http://www.lacavadesign.ca/

The Bakersfield design seems to have been a bit influenced.

It will be interesting to see how this dominant L-shape evolves as it makes its way onto more front pages.

Who was the first to plagarize modular design? Who stole the idea for a serif 72 point headline? What theif decided they could use color to categorize the paper's sections? Who's the person behind the proliferation of verticle rules? What paper copied the idea for powerbar/skyboxes? And, most importantly, who saw the 5-story cover and said: "Yeah, I'm taking that"?

The line is fine, yes, but you can't copyright style. If so, every paper would have to have it's own typography. Styles that work catch on. Much like the music industry. Think about it.

Gooch,

Didn't mean to suggest that the Pilot is anywhere near the plagiarism line here. Sometimes the line can be fine, but in this instance, I don't think it is. Just an interesting instance of a new style perhaps catching on.

With this trend of running so much type over photos, I'm curious about what these pages looked like in print. If my paper tried this, it would be so out of register it would be unreadable.

Don't see the plagiarism at all here. I agree with Gooch - you can't copyright style and it will be interesting to watch this new, popular style catch on.

i wouldn't call this plagiarism. you can't claim a style, design element or trend. tell the young hip designers to stop using splatter, drips and vector silhouettes. but overuse gets old and annoying.

as for the lucie lacava's "hot L," the sun and virginian-pilot's usage is way more classy and elegant. the other 2 are just gaudy.

Martin:

I believe Lucie Lacava did The Sun as well. But, I agree, it works better than the one at La Presse.

yes. lucie did the sun's redesign. i still think it's the best. what i like about the sun and the v-p's treatment, the L's surface area is less than 50% of the page. it's a great balance.

If reverse L's are The Next Big Thing at The Pilot, I didn't get the memo. This is a one-off.

but when a highly payed consultant uses an other's consultant's work for inspiration...

It won't be long until someone is complaining about how all the big L redesigns look alike, and why don't newspapers try something different ...

I like the look, but the rest of us should find something as nice but different.

I think the "Hot L" treatment is fine for the few that have adopted it as their style. But I don't believe it will become a trend among many newspapers. Like Dave, I doubt many presses can print reverse type that well on a daily basis. And if too many papers follow suit, the industry will be no better off than where we are at now -- feverishly fighting to distinguish ourselves from every other newspaper.

I think V-P has lost its identity with the 'L'. The masthead is barely visible, and the question remains will they be able to get a vertically decent picture every day. Or are they just going to have to go the Bakersfield way. I think the plagiarism question is moot. Everything we do is based on something we have seen somewhere, no matter how obscure. Heck! We even dream that way. But then again, I'm just an editorial person...what do we know (Wink,wink, nudge, nudge)

Yesterday's V-P design was a one-time deal. To me, part of the V-P's design identity is the flexibility on page 1 that allows the page designers the ability to choose fresh and appropriate ways to present stories.

While the "L" isn't unique, it is fairly new and not yet over used. I think we will continue to see it become part of page designers' design arsenal.

there is no way this could be considered a ripoff as it's a popular style that has been making the rounds this last year. and in my opinion this might be the best "L" execution i've seen

for me look similar, but not plagiarism, is a big word, similar style is like you say New York Times, la Times, Washington Post, frontal design similar style, standart style, classic, is not "plagiarism" is inspiration from others, but I agree I like Virginian Pilot, elegant and clean. The other three ...nah!

"I think V-P has lost its identity with the 'L'. The masthead is barely visible, and the question remains will they be able to get a vertically decent picture every day"

Well Dave has already told us this is a one-time deal - so I'm not worried about the V-P being able to pull this off every day.

And I don't think they lost their identity at all with this layout. I think that the V-P does a great job of mixing up their front page on a daily basis - so when they try something like this where the mast might not be immediately visible it still feels like the V-P.

I'd be surprised if any regular reader didn't know what paper they were looking at.

But, The Sun look similar too, the regular readers doesn't know what happen.

It has to be said that Lacava redesign of La Presse was the first paper to use the front page L concept and that it had never been seen before 2003. Whether it was one or many papers "borrowing" the L is beside the point and doesn't make it right. There is a difference in using a "style" for a one day, but to make it an integral part of the front page as many recent major redesigns have done, like Reforma... What's the point of hiring a consultant then? Couldn't an in-house team have "drawn inspiration" just as easily?

The L works here as a way to display a photo Pilot-size without taking complete control of the page. You see everything you need to see in the photo. If it's a one-off, great. If not, that's fine, too, but it seems to work just fine here.

You see the logo V-P and the Bakerfield Californian, look similar also, ummm!! something smell strange, ummm,

I strongly recommend Edmund C. Arnold’s “Arnold's ancient axioms: Typography for publications editors” printed in the early 70’s.

He is the first “Guru” of newspaper design, long time before there were Macs or the autoedition exists... he is the true “inventor” of many concepts we use every day in our pages, included the inverted “L” (or inverted “7”).

We all can consider our work as an homenage to Mr. Arnold.

With all due respect to Edmund Arnold and from what I remember of his books, Alex might be referring to the "Dog's Leg" or non-modular, traditional text treatment or story layout. I would be curious to see some pages from this book. Would anyone be able to show us some examples? Or is this a theoretical comparison?

quite frankly, i just don't think it's very attractive. functional, on occasion. but it's just kinda ugly.

Re: Edmund Arnold -- I think that was called brace layout?

I'm sorry but I can't think of anything more impractical than pasting an upside down "L" on page one as a standard fixture. I still can't believe these papers were talked into it.

At best, Baltimore is impractical -- an effort to be "different" at all costs. In general, their page one looks consistently cluttered. But the format does work sometimes. The Montreal and Bakersfield pages are just downright ugly. Both papers are obviously struggling with a design that probably won't last beyond the next editor or design director change.

I guess it's good to experiment and I usually applaud that but a fixed, page one format as an experiment? Bad idea.

Norfolk, on the other hand, did the right thing: Creating a shape that fit the content. It's fluid and flexible (because they won't do it again tomorrow) and isn't a limit on content or creativity. The page is clean and gets my attention because it IS different (and functional).

So I guess the win here is that -- for the rest of us -- we have a new format to try when it fits what we're doing. It's certainly something most of us would not have considered before. And that's a good thing.

I am not a fan of this format Bill, but beauty is in the eye of the reader. Montreal has been doing this for three yrs already, and still going strong, check it on Newseum. All of the others followed suit recently, if it works for them, they will continue toying with the L device.

Oh, I think if you look at the front pages on newseum.com a lot of days, many of the pages have a similar look.
As for the upside down L? I can see it for maybe a special paper package, such as a year in review presentation or a voter's guide or something like that. But day after day on the front? I'm not thrilled.

A question about the "Hot L" from a different angle:

To state the obvious, all 3 of the recent redesigns use the "upside down L" shape.

Is there a reason why one might prefer this over, say, the "backward 7" shape, with the vertical photo going down the right-most column of the page?

As far as the VP goes, how is the 'Hot L' that incredibly different from their regular decisions to do an inverted 7 with their front page on a semi-regular basis. They've been doing the six column strip at the top of their pages while dog-legging one or two columns of body copy down the page.

In a word, I don't necessarily see the VP's 'Hot L' shuttle pic as plagerism, but an inevitable progression of their earlier style choice. But the recent trend in doing this (particularly in Baltimore) facilitated their decision, I'm sure.

For a one-off, I like it. I think the Bakersfield paper and La Presse get muddied a bit with their treatment.

I have to say the 'Hot L' is just a union of a rail and sky boxes neither of which are that original. That said if it caused a bump in rack sales for a day why not.
I think that readers will get bored with the look of the 'L' just like skyboxes and rails unless content follows. What I mean is 'what it says' is just (If not more important) than how it looks.
Design is packaging meant to deliver content clearly and cleanly. It is not the content.