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A Bit of Mischievous Fun at the Foot of Page One
A pattern hidden in plain sight.
A theme and its variations.
A witty signature.
An auteur’s stamp.
Al Hirschfeld had his NINAs: those oh-so-limber capital letters of his daughter’s name that he slid between strands of hair and folds of fabric in his theater caricatures.
Alfred Hitchcock had his cameos: sly now-you-see-me-now-you-don’t personal appearances toward the beginnings of his films — there he is carrying a musical instrument; riding public transportation; peeking out from behind a winning hand of bridge.
And Tom Bodkin, The Times’s creative director? Well, he has his reefers.
Despite Mr. Bodkin’s coming of age at roughly the same cultural moment as the Doonesbury comic strip character Zonker Harris, these have nothing to do with marijuana and everything to do with dynamic newspaper design.
According to “A Glossary of Terms Used in the Newsroom of The New York Times” — a no-frills four-page printout given to new hires at their orientations — a “reefer” is “a short item, sometimes with a photo, at the bottom of Page One (also known as A1) that ‘refers’ or directs the reader to an article inside the newspaper.”
On any given day you’ll find a handful of such items running across the foot of A1, along with two or three images, each measuring no more than 1 by 2 inches. Once in a while you might also discern a visual theme tying these otherwise disparate images together — circles, for example, or shades of red and orange.
Mr. Bodkin doesn’t remember the first time a grouping of these themed reefer photos took shape or how it came about. “It almost always begins as a happy accident,” he says.
The happy accident on July 19, 2016, was water — three images from stories in three different sections all featured that common element: one of a nuclear submarine in British waters (International), one of synchronized swimmers (Sports) and one of toxic algae (Science).
On other occasions, numbers formed the theme:
A wall display of twentysome books, for a National story on California’s public library system — opposite twentysome individual “organic” socks tacked to a bulletin board, for a Styles story on an Alabama woman’s family-mill-based brand.
Three congressional Democrats hanging back up a protest painting by a high school senior that Republicans had taken down (National), three Central Park garbage cans awaiting pickup by a new fleet of electric carts (Metro), three San Diego Chargers fans (Sports).
Sometimes, parts of the body:
Eyes — figures in a winter face mask, virtual reality goggles and sunglasses, from Arts, Business and Styles, respectively.
Ears — President Vladimir Putin of Russia listening through a translation device; film and TV actor Pedro Pascal wearing a security earpiece; the writer James Baldwin’s head turned in profile.
Hands — those of Al Qaeda’s Anwar al-Awlaki gesturing during a speech, those of New York law enforcement restraining an accused murderer in a Brooklyn courtroom, those of a runway model during London Fashion Week.
“Repetition is a powerful tool in design, used through the ages by artists,” Mr. Bodkin explains. “Look at Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroes: the same image in different color palettes and combinations.”
In the case of the bottom eighth of The Times’s front page, he notes, “it creates a secondary rhythm to the rest of A1, making the page more dynamic, energetic, active.”
“I want it to provoke, to tease out the rich variety of news we’re presenting,” Mr. Bodkin says, “and I also want the photos to be harmonious, not to fight each other.”
This sort of “visual alliteration” isn’t “critical to our mission or central to journalism,” he admits, but there’s a kind of joy in it — “a bit of fun for me and the design team and maybe some readers.”
A nice break for the eyes from an often relentlessly disturbing news mix.
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