By RON MATTHEWS
Seattle Intelligencer

	10 TIPS FOR BETTER DESIGN

Would you run type on photos? Is your type font doing the job you need it to do? Do you encourage portraits instead of action in discussions with your photo staff? Do you look for new ways to present information? These were a sampling of the questions Harrower presented to sports editors during his 90-minute program titled, "10 Tips for Better Design."

"Your father's newspaper offers no special appeal to today's readers," said Harrower, author of "The Newspaper Designer's Handbook."

His slide show was as much inspiration as it was revelation. Harrower showed numerous slides of actual pages, followed by slides of what could have been with a tweak in type, a tighter photo edit, less traffic on page, etc.

Following is a rundown of the 10 tips:

1. Tweak your type. Shop for fonts with a little more punch. Harrower talked about creating power headlines that can generate the "pop" so desperately needed on many of today's centerpieces. Also, he stressed the importance of labeling stories beyond just the headline.

2. Respect the rules about dominant art and modular layout. Harrower warned the room that the fastest way to look amateurish is to ignore this rule. Anchor your page with good art, and resist the temptation to use multiple images. Commit to one dominant image and play it right.

3. Make your photos smarter. Love 'em when they're good, and remember that a good photo doesn't have to be a standard rectangle.

4. Package your special stories. Find a way to make something jump off your page. Define and know the difference between a centerpiece and a lede story, and treat them as such. Harrower said the graduate level for a centerpiece is a package that contains no standard text — the piece is made up of various breakouts, charts, stats, etc.

5. Format your special pages. "You can judge the IQ of your sports section by Page 2." Look for ways to build consistency into your pages.

6. Speed it up. Trust the short form. "Are readers reading the long stuff? There's proof they're not." Long-winded text is deadly. Can you speed it up without dumbing it down?"

7. Upgrade your grid. This led to a short lesson in what exactly is a grid, and to a relevation for many in the room: The trendy seven-column grid in use at many papers today is not newspaper friendly — it's ideal for a tab or a magazine. Having a grid you're comfortable with will help in the packaging of details — there is a space for tradtional text, and another area for the extras. The goal is to standardize the extras for maximum flexibility.

8. Update your design vocabulary. How current are the tools in your tool box? The best design in journalism is today is happening south of the border. Newspaper design in the U.S. is way behind. "It's up to sports. Sports is the place to update your design."

9. Go forth and redesign. When was your last redesign? Papers should redesign every seven years if you're big, every 10-12 for small to medium. And don't save it up for one big day. Start tomorrow. Evaluate your current section and ask: What am I lacking? Borrow ideas from the papers and magazines you like and move forward. Build a prototype, test it and move to implement. As you go forward, make sure a design stylebook is being created as well.

10. Lighten up! Why are some of your sections so boring?