Photographs and Infographic Elements on Contemporary Nigerian Newspapers: A study of Vanguard, The Punch, Daily Sun and Leadership

U. P. Ibuot, T. Akanni

Abstract

Newspaper publishers in Nigeria are becoming more conscious of the need to adapt to visual design formats in their bid to appeal to consumers. The visual design method involves the arrangement of information items such as texts, images, diagrams, pictures, or tables in a way that is visually attractive, perceptive, and easily understandable. This study sought to discover the current design patterns of four of the leading national daily newspapers in Nigeria: Vanguard, The Punch, Daily Sun, and Leadership, from September 2014 to August 2015. Twenty-four issues of each of these titles were sampled for the study. The emphasis was on the use of photographs and infographics as design vehicles to improve the navigation of newspaper pages and make them more reader-friendly. The study was anchored on the Gestalt theory of visual perception, and adopted the visual analysis method of research. The information obtained from the sampled newspapers was analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 20.0 to determine frequency, percentage score, average and ratios. Findings indicate that the newspapers published an average of one photograph per news page during the period. Photographs and infographics were predominaly displayed in either 3 ½ columns by 4 inches deep or 4 columns by 3½ inches deep at the top right or left corner, or in the middle of the page.

Keywords

Reader-friendliness, design vehicle, micro and macro white spaces, visual analysis, newspaper page navigation.

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