Newspaper Website Design: Trends And Examples

Steven Snell
Nov 11, 2008
0 comments

18 min read
Inspiration,Showcases,Newspapers,Web Design

About The Author

Steven Snell is a Web designer and blogger. In addition to maintaining his own blog and writing for a number of other top design blogs, he also manages an …More aboutSteven↬

Email Newsletter

.
Trusted by 200,000+ folks.

SmashingConf New York 2024

Advertise on Smashing Magazine
Deploy Fast. Deploy Smart

News websites can be intriguing to examine from a design perspective. Regardless of what type of news they cover, they all face the challenge of displaying a huge amount of content on the home page, which creates plenty of layout, usability and navigational challenges for the designer. The lessons that can be learned from examining how news websites address these challenges can be valuable for designers who work with other types of websites, including ones with blog theme designs.

Monetization is also a major factor for news websites, and it’s interesting to see how they integrate advertisem*nts in the design. In some cases, the ads are somewhat intrusive or excessive, but most news websites are able to use ads without turning readers away, in part because of the content that’s available.

For the purposes of this article, the term “newspaper website” refers to any news-related website that has the editorial focus of an online periodical. Many of the websites mentioned here are the online versions of major newspapers, but others are standard news websites and some blur the line between news website and blog.

You may want to take a look at the following related posts:

Award-Winning Newspaper Designs This post is supposed to provide you with some examples of outstanding newspaper designs which have been rewarded with prestigious awards (see references at the bottom of this post), and demonstrate unusual approaches of newspaper design.

Common Trends of Newspaper Websites 2008

1. Color Schemes

Most news websites use dark text on a white background. Obviously, these websites contain a huge volume of content, and readability is important. A few of the websites mentioned later in this article use darker colors for headers or for the body of the page outside the content.

A large percentage of news websites also use blue and red in addition to a dark gray or black for text. Blue is extremely common for headlines, article titles and links. Red is often used sparingly as an accent color. Some news websites also mix in more colors in other places, such as in the navigation.

The L.A. Times website demonstrates a common color scheme:

2. Header and Sidebar Banners

Of course, all of these websites need to produce revenue, and banner ads in headers are a key source of income. Some websites use banner ads on all pages, and others exclude banners on the home page but display them above the header on other pages.

While blogs commonly use 125 by 125 pixel banners in sidebars, news websites commonly use 300 by 250 banners or tall skyscrapers. Many of the websites mix in some AdSense or other text link ads.

The Telegraph uses a 730 by 90 pixel banner over its header.

3. Top Navigation

Although there are a few notable exceptions to this trend, most news websites put their primary navigation menu just below the header and above the content. The New York Times and MSNBC are two of the exceptions, as they both use the left sidebar for the main navigation.

4. Tabbed Content Areas

Many news websites use tabbed content areas that allow visitors to see popular articles, recent articles, most commented articles, etc. This is sometimes used in the sidebar, and other times in the main content area, such as on Wired. This allows for more control by users over what content and links they see, and it can save space in the design by making more content accessible in a specific area.

5. Grid-Based Layouts

Newspaper websites are commonly built with grid-based designs. The grid is a popular choice not only because of the sharp look it creates but because it’s one of the most effective ways to manage and organize a large amount of content. The New York Times has one of the more well-known grid-based layouts.

Notable Differences Between News Websites and Blogs

The line between a news website and a blog is a fine one, and the two types are difficult to distinguish sometimes. For the purpose of this article, “blog” refers more to a traditional blog than to a commercialized news blog by a team of writers. While there are certainly similarities between blogs and news websites, there are also some key differences.

Social Media Integration

Seeing widgets or voting buttons on blogs is extremely common; in fact, most blogs use them in one form or another. Most news websites, however, use them more subtly, if at all. It’s common to see a “Share” section on articles, such as the one shown below from ABC News, but voting buttons are not used in quite the same way as on blogs, where a standard “Digg This” button may appear at the top of every post. A growing number of news websites recognize the impact of social media, but they are still using such tools subtly in their designs.

A few websites shown in more detail below do make more use of social media than others. The Huffington Post has a section specifically to display stories that are new on Digg, and the website certainly makes plenty of front page appearances.

RSS Feeds

Subscriptions and RSS feeds are a huge part of blogging, and most blogs use large icons or FeedBurner counts to make it easy for visitors to subscribe. Most news websites, however, don’t push RSS feeds on readers like a blog would. Most news websites do offer feeds, often according to category of content, but they’re not a major part of the design or layout. In fact, most visitors probably don’t even notice the small icons or links to feeds. As RSS feeds become a part of the daily lives of average readers, this will probably change.

The Guardian promotes a link to its feed in the website’s header, but with much less attention drawn to it than most blog themes.

Comments

Reader comments and discussion are a critical element for most blogs, but they’re not as important to news websites. Many news websites allow readers to leave comments, but they’re usually an afterthought in the design and are rarely promoted the same way as they would be on a blog. For example, many blogs show excerpts of posts on the front page, and almost all will also show a comment count with the excerpt that links to the comment section. This is used on a few news websites, but it’s rare.

ABC News is one of the rare news websites that shows a comment count by the post excerpt on the home page.

A Look at 20 Leading Newspaper Websites

The OnionSatirical news website The Onion features a grid-based design (it’s been called the funniest grid you ever saw) that makes excellent use of the screen space that’s available. There is a lot going on on the website, which can be both good and bad. The main navigation separates the content into video, radio, sports, election, etc.

The header includes an ad on each side, and the sidebar has some advertising as well, but nothing too intrusive. Some parts of the home page are used essentially as advertisem*nts for features that are part of The Onion, such as The Onion Personals and The Onion Store.

New York TimesThe website of the New York Times is another well-known grid. The majority of the website’s navigation is down the left side of the page, which is not as common as top navigation. The website does use a tabbed navigation bar at the top with links to such features as “Today’s paper,” “Video,” and “Most popular,” but all of the content category links, such as World, U.S., Politics, Business, etc., are down the side.

The website’s design includes a nice use of blue and black headers and links, with a touch of red added in a few places, such as the time of an article’s publication. Overall, the New York Times presents one of the better newspaper websites.

Chicago TribuneUnlike many of the other websites featured here, the Chicago Tribune uses only one small banner in the header of its home page, although individual article pages use a 730 by 90 banner. Aside from the header, the rest of the home page is fairly ad-heavy, including text link ads.

The content on the Chicago Tribune website is spaced out a bit more than, for example, the New York Times’. Again, blue is used for headers and links, with a touch of red.

Washington PostThe Washington Post also uses the common colors of blue, black (or dark gray) and red on a white background. The header includes a small 290 by 45 banner, and the top of the sidebar includes a 300 by 250 banner. The rest of the home page contains only a few other small banner ads.

The layout of content on the home page is focused on providing categorized links to specific content. An image is included for the lead story, but other headlines above the fold do not have thumbnails. At the top right, there is a section for the most-viewed articles.

Los Angeles TimesThe L.A. Times website takes a different approach with its header than some other news websites. There is relatively little going on there, with plenty of unused space that could be filled with ads, something that most other news sites are doing. The rest of the home page uses only two 300 by 250 banners and a few text link ads. Individual article pages use a 730 by 90 banner above the header.

The content of the L.A. Times home page is contained in a grid-based layout, with primary navigation on the left. Again, blue, black and red are the colors of choice for text, links and headlines.

TennesseanThe Tennessean isn’t one of the largest newspapers in the U.S., but its website is worth noting. The Tennessean breaks some of the norms of the other websites that have been examined so far, primarily in terms of color. A dark orange is used for headlines and links, instead of a more common choice, such as blue. Additionally, a green background color is used on the sidebar.