LayoutFrom our catalogue entryComposition: narrow justified columns; masthead.
TypographyOur readingEditorial Modernism's serif-text / condensed-sans-furniture pairing, tightened. Borrowed and declared — Broadsheet has no rule of its own, and this is not a claim about it.
TypographyDocumented · Source attachedTimes New Roman, a serif commissioned for The Times in 1931, has short descenders to allow tight linespacing and a relatively condensed appearance.
TypographySeen in the workA contemporary broadsheet printer recommends a minimum type size of 8 pt.
ColorDocumented · Source attachedColour, where used, can be four-colour process or spot, depending on the press; one current printer refuses spot colour, while US newspapers had a specified spot-colour palette. A single spot colour is not a broadsheet attribute.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedBroadsheet front pages tend to show two or more stories, with the most important at the top, where tabloids tend toward a single story dominated by a headline.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedThe Times carried no news, only small advertisements, on its front page until 1966.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedAt The New York Times, a picture editor was removed in January 1954 after placing a photograph of Monroe and DiMaggio kissing on the front page.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedA content study of Swedish dailies that moved from broadsheet to tabloid found page format had only a minor influence on content; all papers, whatever their size, moved the same way.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedThe study treats as a prior belief, which it then tests, the idea that quality papers switching to tabloid would bring more tabloidisation, including more pictures, illustrations, graphics and large headlines.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedSwedish papers that went tabloid in the early 2000s had a low share of articles with pictures in the 1990s, and that share almost doubled; the study concludes newspapers in general devote more space to pictures and illustrations.
ImageryDocumented · Source attachedIn US newspaper design (not broken down by format), photographs became the dominant front-page graphic element; a 1984 survey (Utt & Pasternack) found 96.2 percent of papers used a dominant photograph and most ran two front-page photographs.
MotifDocumented · Source attachedThe masthead is the banner name on a newspaper's front page (US: nameplate).
MotifDocumented · Source attachedThe Times's masthead dropped a feature it had carried since the paper's founding.
MotifDocumented · Source attachedEngraved symbols in newspaper mastheads are attested as a practice in American Revolutionary-era newspapers, where printers added and removed political emblems.
TechniqueDocumented · Source attachedModern presses print broadsheet sections in multiples of eight pages, and the width of a newsprint roll is called its web.
TechniqueDocumented · Source attachedA complete layout dummy fixed column widths for the typesetter; photographic plates are still wrapped on printing drums to apply ink to newsprint.
TechniqueDocumented · Source attachedNewsprint becomes brittle and yellow when exposed to air or sunlight; it can take four-colour printing, and one printer reduces ink coverage for it.
FormDocumented · Source attachedThe sheet is folded vertically in half to make four pages, and inside sheets nest inside one another.
FormDocumented · Source attachedOn broadsheet front pages the most important stories sit at the top of the page.
FormSeen in the workAt least one current printer cannot print a full double-page spread on a traditional broadsheet.
HierarchyOur readingRank by column position and rule weight — above the fold and left-most leads. Not scale; the page has no room for scale.
DensityFrom our catalogue entryDensity: "denser than the parent".
DensityDocumented · Source attachedNineteenth-century newspapers were often densely packed with type, often arranged vertically, with multiple headlines per article.
Form / motif / surface / techniqueFrom our catalogue entryForm/motif/surface/technique: hairline rules, newsprint.