Sports agate on 46" web

[Tom Lynch]

We've got orders to bump up the size of our agate type for our aging readers' eyes. At the same time, we're beginning to plan for a reduction from 48 to 46" web.

If you're already on a 46" web, what are you using for a grid on your sports agate page? I've been experimenting with 7 columns, which seems to be pretty useful, except that it won't overlay a 6 col standard grid -- which would be a problem with box scores that often run on the baseball page rather than on the agate page. Our current agate page is 8 columns.

Also, what font and point size is your standard agate style? (Not that it's really agate anymore...) We've been using Frutiger Condensed at 6.5 pt for our standard, but we're considering other fonts, up to as big as 8 pt.

Any samples you'd care to show?

[Joe Greco]

Hi Tom,

I've done a number of redesigns this year for papers that have reduced web widths to 46 inches and included overhauls of sports agate pages. The new width would require a reassessment of the number of columns on the agate page. I recommend going down to six for a few reasons. First the extra width will allow for several columns of tabbed stats and possibly at a larger point size. The six column format also will allow advertising positions on the page that are in line with the rest of the paper. I haven't used Frutiger Condensed, but 6.5 seems like a decent size for agate, Older reader may have difficulty reading the page because of the number of columns. Test your current font size on six columns for legibility. I typically use BentonSans Book, 6 on 7. Good luck.

[David Brauhn]

I sympathize with you. We went to a 46" web last year and agate was a problem. The standing order was to retain the typefaces and sizes. We had already been using a large, reader-friendly Swiss 721 at 6.5 point. Of course, squeezing the tabs didn't work on the 46" version. I shrunk the type a tad, and tried condensed, which made everything fit, and which was still bigger type than most papers, but there were complaints. A lot of complaints. Like, imagine if you left out Family Circus and the crossword puzzle for a week; that many complaints. Woe to the man who shrinks agate. The real problem was that we started out with huge agate, and readers didn't want to give that up. Anyway, I cut the Gordian knot, talked with advertising and sports, and instead of approaching the web-width change as a how-do-I-smash-this? issue, I went the opposite direction and gave the readers what they wanted and more; I bumped the point size up to 7 and put the agate over 5 columns on a 6-column grid. Yes, I know, bizarre. We're a little paper, so at most, there will be one and three-quarter pages of agate. If the sports guys have to navigate ads, they run agate on a wider bastard column width -- 4 on 5, 3 on 4, 2 on 3. Crude, but it works. Obviously, the agate doesn't dogleg. If there's a problem with the ad stack, we change it. Baseball boxes for stories that run on our normal 6-column grid have a slightly tighter tabs and slightly smaller type. Pretty different solution, but we have happy, spoiled sports readers, very readable agate (probably the largest anywhere) and zero complaints. So, that was taking a liability with the web-width change and making it into a selling point. Agate is an important and popular part of the paper. Why make it harder to read than it already is? Every boxscore tells a story.

[Katy Forrestt]

We kept the same point size/font (7 in most cases), and chose a 6-column format, which worked best with most of the tables. At the time of our redesign, though, we also faced overall space cutbacks, so some of our agate solution involved content editing. .... choosing which tables to drop, and which columns to cut from various tables to allow them to fit on the narrow column. Seemed to work well; limited number of calls at the end, and a cleaner look overall.