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1853
This was the earliest issue of the Ottawa Citizen that I could get my hands on. By the time this page was published the paper had been in business for eight years. -
1867
That is a lot of text! Keep in mind that these pages would have been manually composed by hand. Individual print blocks for each letter were composited into words and sentences and then bound together to create the page design known as a forme. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that hot-metal typesetting machines replaced the method of designing pages by hand. -
1895
You'll see here that the nameplate was simplified to typography only. The paper had also switched to a six-column grid from seven. By this time, the Linotype method of creating moveable type by machine had caused a huge leap forward in production speed. -
1898
This was one of the first examples that I could find of artwork used on page one. The image is a drawing of Theodore Durrant, a man sentenced to death by hanging in a local prison. Yes, it was a simpler time... -
1899
This could quite possibly be the first infographic printed on the front page of the Citizen. The artwork shows the hierarchy of the newly elected city council. -
1916
The early 19th century marked significant advancements in newspaper design. By 1916 headlines were being used to draw readers into the articles on page one. Even more dramatic was the introduction of photography as art. The process of printing photos was still in its infancy, and as result the images were usually limited to small mugshots as seen on this page. -
1922
In this page you can start to see a transformation in the styling of the nameplate. Skyboxes were introduced as teasers and to show the publication time of the paper. -
1929
By this time photo printing methods had come a long way and larger photography was made possible. This page shows a photo illustration that combines three separate images. A photo of a group of men was clipped and placed on top of the other two pictures. -
1939
Bigger and better quality photography was becoming the focus of page one. With the outbreak of the Second World War in September of 1939, newspapers became a national fixation. -
1940
The Second World War had a huge impact on newspapers. Many countries began rationing newsprint supplies, which led to smaller papers. Even though the demand for war news was at an all time high, less pages meant less advertising and as result, less revenue. To combat this, editorial content was more concise and the designers shifted the main news stories to the front page, using large, bold, sans-serif headlines to draw readers in. This became the iconic style for wartime newspapers. -
1944
With newsprint in short supply, design once again focused on maximizing the amount of content on the page. The only things that got bigger were the headlines and the exclamation marks. -
1953
By 1953 newspapers were capable of printing large photographs like the image shown here of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation. It's also interesting to note that the Citizen was using serif headline fonts during this time period. -
1958
Without war news to push papers off the stands, publications started to play with more imagery to pique the interest of readers. Newspaper design was coming of age, and the post-war era marked the onset of style concepts that are familiar to this day. This page of the citizen even includes a map on the front page, which would have been fairly rare to see during that time. -
1960
The design of the front page was starting to get much more creative. This page is a great example of how dramatically the Citizen's design had evolved over the past two decades. There was also another significant step forward in newspaper production technology. In the early 60's phototypesetting or "cold type" systems were quickly replacing continuous casting machines. -
1966
This is another great example of how the front page was taking on a different look nearly every issue. This page show articles running right to the top of the page, to the right of the nameplate. -
1974
By this time a company called Compugraphic was producing phototypesetting machines that allowed publications to do all of their typesetting electronically. The design of the Citizen featured a six-column grid on the front page and the nameplate was given more breathing room, outlined with a box. -
1977
Experimenting with different designs on page one was now common practice. This page shows content above the nameplate and a rail of teasers down the left-hand side of the page. -
1984
Once again technology had made another tremendous leap forward, and with it, newspapers launched into the digital era. Computers were now being used to do all of the typesetting automatically, rendering phototypesetting a thing of the past. For all intensive purposes, this paper wouldn't look too out of date on today's newspaper stands. -
1986
This page uses bastard measure heavily. Nearly every story on this page has a different column width. At the time this would have been a fairly new design trend. -
2001
Oddly enough it was incredibly difficult to find pages of the Ottawa Citizen from the 1990s. So the jump from 1986 to 2001 is a pretty big one. If you have access to some of the Citizen's front page designs and wouldn't mind sharing them, please contact me at matt@newsdesigns.com By this time the nameplate was being used to actively brand the newspaper. The Citizen's logo depicts the top of the Peace Tower of the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa. -
2007
The front page of this issue has no articles on it whatsoever, and instead focuses on photography and teasers as a way of drawing readers in. -
2010
Here we are some 165 years later, and we've arrived at a contemporary page one design that typifies the modern North American broadsheet style.
