Getting Away from Worn Paths.
The winning pages at the 11th European Newspaper Award have shown that there are lots of ways of how to avoid work routines, for instance in such areas as photographic cut and size and visualization in general.
From the results of the last competition the following trends can be deduced:

Overall Situation. On the whole, European newspapers are still being hit by falling sales. An exception are weeklies like the German "Die Zeit", which saw a 4% rise in comparison to the previous year, and "Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung " (Germany) with a 3.2% rise. Also the Austrian "Kleine Zeitung" from Graz could increase their sales figures. But in general, the economic crisis took its toll in a number of countries such as Switzerland: the newspapers have become considerably thinner. And still, more newspapers participated in the last competition and their quality was by no means of a lower standard.

Colour. Coloured spaces are still rare to be found, but throughout Europe newspapers tend to use beige or apricot-coloured backgrounds for bodycopy , which are light enough to make for good reading.

Photography. Still trendy: large photos, but a reduced number of photos per page, instead. Cut-out pictures do not occur so very often, they are mainly used on fashion, lifestyle and weekend pages.

Fonts. Germany and Switzerland prefer rather traditional and serious looking fonts. There is a clear trend towards a retro-design so that some regional newspapers have even taken on the appeal of a business paper. In Scandinavia and France, however, sanserif typefaces are often used for headlines. Even though, newspapers strive for individual and distinctive appearances by their use of fonts.

Headlines. Headlines are still becoming leaner. "VDI-Nachrichten" and "Stuttgarter Zeitung", for example, add a much bigger lead to their headlines, thus saving a subhead and avoiding verbal repetitions. Keywords in headlines previously introduced by some newspapers have now been done away with after some ten years by "Suedwest-Presse " from Ulm (Germany). But on the whole, it seems that keywords are useful since they help to identify topics in other media.

All in All. The abundance of creative solutions presented at the European Newspaper Award over the past years have had a loosening-up effect on many newspapers: they are still becoming more magazine-like; a reverse effect such as long run-on texts and small pictures are not discernible anywhere in Europe.
The Yearbooks. So far, ten yearbooks focusing on the concept and design of European newspapers have been published. Volumes 8, 9 and 10 are available as PDF on CD-ROM. Orders can be made via
www.newspaperaward.org.
Magazine-Like Papers. They are still widely in fashion with European publishing houses. The same applies to visually appealing presentations of topical news on front pages. On the whole, there is no denying the fact that newspapers are a creative medium, which are able to convince their readers by their polished contents and design, despite competing media such as the Internet.
Newspaper Design 9, ca. 650 pictures, ISBN 978-3-00-024458-2, 35 € (60 Sfr.)
Ideas for Today's Newspapers. The yearbook of the 10th European Newspaper Award provides a survey of the present trends in newspaper design and concept.
Newspaper Design 10, ca. 650 pictures, ISBN 978-3-00-024458-2, 35 € (60 Sfr.)