TAKEAWAY: Space is at a premium, many newspapers no longer carry a full food section, so it is refreshing to see that, in the UAE, the splashy avocado (or tomato) page still has a place.
Viva the double page spread
Interesting page from the UAE’s The National this Wednesday.
Oh, to see the avocado page live again. It has been a long time. Not that this one is an avocado, mind you. It is a tomato, celebrating 100 years of Heinz Cream of Tomato soup!
During the fabulous 1980’s, those years we nostalgically remember so well, when Design was spelled with a capital D, and the US papers,particularly, would indulge in those great openings of Food sections, the large image of the fruit or vegetable or dish of the week, with glorious type treatments, and a summary set in 36 point to tease you into cooking with onion, or eggs; who can ever forget the memorable Nanette Bisher page for The Orange County Register, a stiletto shoe stepping on an egg yolk, with the controversial headline: Beat them, whip them but respect them in the morning!.
Now, so many US newspapers have abandoned the food section, it leaves epicureans tuning in to Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray. And those dailies still carrying food sections don’t have the space to give to illustrations as they once did.
How refreshing , then, to see that here in the UAE, The National affords a two page spread to this subject, with little text and images of tomatoes all over.
You say tomato, I say to-ma-to.
I say, good for The National. Enjoy it while you can. Space like that does not come easy for most anymore.
Why avocado page?
Two readers have already emailed me to ask: why do you call this the “avocado” page?
I came to use that term, avocado page, while teaching professional seminars at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, everytime a features designer arrived with pages to critique and there would inevitably be food section fronts with an avocado the size of the full page, with a headline over it.
Lady Gaga as centerpiece
Appropriate to avocados and tomatoes, here is today’s page from Bild Zeitung (Germany), showing the very visual Lady Gaga, arriving at the MTV Awards. Bild headlines it as the Gaga Phenomenon. Packaged in a rather small canvas: 9 photos, with one dominating.