Nameplate Designs, Headline Point Sizes, and Colour on Nigerian Newspapers: A Study of Selected National Dailies

Abstract

Nigerian newspapers are consciously adapting to visual design formats in their bid to appeal to consumers. These visual design methods involve the arrangement of page furniture, such as headlines, colour, and nameplates, in a way that is visually attractive and perceptive to the reader. This study sought to discover the current application of colour, headline typefaces, and point sizes, as well as nameplate designs, on four of the nation’s leading daily newspapers: <i>Vanguard, The Punch, Daily Sun, </i>and<i> Leadership, </i>from September 2014 to August 2015. Twenty-four issues of each of these titles were sampled for the study over a period of 12 months, from September 2014 to August 2015. These resulted in a sample frame of 96 issues of the selected newspapers. The population of the four daily newspapers during the period was 1,048, made up of 261 daily issues of <i>Vanguard</i>, 261 issues of <i>The Punch</i>, 263 issues of the <i>Daily Sun, </i>and 263 issues of <i>Leadership</i>. The study which was anchored in the Gestalt theory of visual perception adopted the visual analysis method of research. The methodology was chosen because it addresses a designer’s formal elements, such as visual attributes best explained in the form of colour, line, texture, and size. Data obtained from the sampled newspapers was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0. The findings were that each of these newspapers paid attention to the design of its nameplate, printed the front and back pages in colour and applied bold headlines to attract the attention of readers during the period of the study.