Design for Readers or Design for Designers?

Wow! Three posts back to back ... I'm lamer than Stephanie.

So I was looking for PDFs of the Republic redesign so I could talk about it in my Media Ethics Journal, and I happened across an interesting blog site: Newsdesigner.com. As I was reading the back posts there was a particularly interesting entry about a Sept. 11 five-year anniversary spread done by The Virginian-Pilot. The reactions on the blog were very polarized. Either the posters loved it or hated it.

Those who loved the design said the many instances of symbolism were truly intriguing. They also said such an important event deserves a page to itself. They argued readers would appreciate the special attention, and that we shouldn't dumb design down for them, or, rather, underestimate their interest in design. Those who hated the design said the page worked better as artwork to be hung on a wall. They said it did nothing to serve the reader and was an instance of a designer designing for his or herself.

I'm torn. I think the page is beautiful. The more I looked at it, the more I noticed. The vertical tally marks can bee seen as two towers and the horizontal one as a plane, for instance. (Maybe you already noticed that, haha, I'm a little slow.) I also agreed, though, that it's not super effective as a paper's front page. While the anniversary is certainly significant it doesn't necessarily affect one's life as breaking news might. As a special section front page it definitely works, but maybe not as the whole paper's front. Still, I really like it.

In any case it definitely makes me wonder whether newspapers should have fun with design or if they should push for readability. I know The State Press has received some criticism for spicing things up. It's sort of like the writing end. You don't want to get too carried away with your own descriptive prose that the reader feels alienated or uninformed. Thoughts?