Sudanese Memory: A New Approach to Newspaper Design Despite the Decline of Print Journalism

Mohamed Al-Sheikh Hussein
Abdel Hamid Mirghani is one of the pioneers of Sudanese journalism. Since the mid-1970s, he has played an active role in designing, producing, founding and publishing a number of newspapers and magazines both inside and outside Sudan.
This article explores one of his most notable contributions to newspaper design, even as the era of print journalism appears to be drawing to a close.
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Newspaper designer Abdel Hamid Mirghani shares a concern familiar to most people working in journalism: how to present written material in an attractive form through a design approach suited to the content’s nature.
Yet Mirghani, who distinguished himself in this field from 1977 onwards, went further than others who shared this concern. Despite losing his sight 25 years ago, he developed a new method of newspaper design based on the physics of vision, journalistic professionalism and the psychological response of the reader.
Those familiar with his achievements were not surprised when he won the Al-Zubair Martyr Award for Newspaper Design during the 2008 Awards Festival.
The recognition, granted through one of Sudan’s most prestigious scientific awards, crowned a long and demanding career that began in the mid-1970s and extended across newspaper organisations within Sudan and abroad.
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Those who came to know Abdel Hamid Mirghani well observed that he possessed a distinctive approach to newspaper design and an unusual ability to reduce complex details to the central question of how form could be harmonised with content.
For Mirghani, the content of the journalistic material always came first. Improving the quality of content was, in his view, the principal gateway to creating an attractive and expressive visual form.
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To avoid presenting conclusions before explaining their foundations, it is important to note that Mirghani developed his approach in response to a longstanding weakness in Sudanese journalism.
Since the emergence of the Sudanese press in the early twentieth century, newspaper design had suffered from a lack of systematic methodology.
As he put it:
“Randomness and the absence of simple, attractive aesthetics that do not strain the reader’s eyes have remained dominant.”
In essence, the absence of a distinctive visual identity in Sudanese newspapers encouraged Mirghani to develop a systematic design model based on visual science, journalistic professionalism and reader psychology.
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Without any attempt at false modesty, Mirghani based this initiative on 40 years of professional experience and on the findings of a survey involving different groups of readers and their visual needs.
Choosing the Appropriate Typeface
Before formally setting out the ideas that had developed in his mind, Mirghani decided that each newspaper should use a typeface suitable for readers with different levels of vision and capable of withstanding the effects of poor printing quality.
The model accompanying his method divides the page horizontally into six columns. Each column is then divided vertically into four fields.
The result is a page consisting of 24 fields, upon which the layout is constructed in a manner resembling a musical score.
Designers are expected to follow this underlying structure regardless of differences in their personal tastes, although the model does not eliminate space for movement, variation and creativity.

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Does this proposal offer any advantage beyond making newspaper design resemble a musical composition played according to a fixed score, perhaps leaving little room for creativity or departure from the established structure?
Mirghani anticipated this question.
His answer was that the model’s primary advantage lies in its balanced distribution of white and black space, making the page more comfortable for the eye.
The second advantage is that it addresses a longstanding weakness in Sudanese newspaper advertising design.
Under the proposed system, advertisements are designed in harmony with the editorial material appearing on the page. This increases the likelihood that readers will stop, examine the advertisement and consider its message.
The third advantage lies in breaking the monotony and uniformity traditionally associated with the design of investigative features, enabling feature pages to present their material more distinctly.
The fourth advantage, according to Mirghani, is the preservation of a 3:2 ratio in image dimensions, which he considers visually appropriate, while also accounting for brightness and shadow in photographs.
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It is well known that the dimensions of newspaper pages are determined by the width of the available paper roll and the type of printing machinery used.
The most commonly used paper width is 760 millimetres, covering two pages. This means that each page measures 380 millimetres in width.
Mirghani’s innovation was to divide the printable horizontal area into six columns rather than the eight-column format commonly used in Sudan.
Dividing the page into six columns offers several advantages:
Readers can concentrate more easily on six columns than on eight.
Six columns reduce the effort required for eye movement by approximately 25 per cent. In an eight-column layout, the eye moves horizontally and vertically approximately 960 times, whereas in a six-column layout it moves around 720 times.
Readers can more easily return to the point where they left off if their reading is interrupted.

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The practical outcome of dividing the page into six columns is that each column should be 55 millimetres wide, with four-millimetre spaces between columns.
Although Mirghani recommends maintaining this measurement as the standard, he acknowledges that it may be adjusted on certain pages by increasing or reducing column widths based on the nature of the material and its layout requirements.
Without entering into complex technical detail, he simplified the process of maintaining or modifying the standard by preparing a table showing how columns can be converted into wider or narrower measurements in millimetres, together with the corresponding spaces between them.
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How should the columns be divided into fields?
For Mirghani, the process is straightforward.
He allocates part of the upper printable area to the masthead, measuring ten millimetres vertically by 350 millimetres horizontally.
This is followed by a blank space measuring four millimetres vertically by 350 millimetres horizontally.
The columns are then divided into four equal fields, each measuring 130 millimetres vertically by 55 millimetres horizontally.
A two-millimetre notional separator distinguishes each field from the next, allowing them to be identified as Field 1, Field 2, Field 3 and so forth.
The page therefore contains a total of 24 fields which, together with the masthead, constitute what is referred to as the printable area.
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The purpose of these fields is to enable the designer to build a basic visual identity for the newspaper through a defined map.
Designers may move within this structure without disturbing the fundamental character and rhythm of the layout, regardless of how many different individuals work on the design.
The principle resembles a musical score: the melody remains recognisable even when performed by different musicians.
The fields also accelerate production.
With a simple practical test, the designer can estimate how many words fit in each field.
For example, a field measuring 130 by 55 millimetres can accommodate approximately 190 words in 11-point type with appropriate line spacing.
The designer can therefore compare the length of the material with the available space and, through a simple calculation, determine the proportion of space required and adjust for any excess or shortage.
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Mirghani gives considerable importance to type because it is the medium through which information moves from the printed page to the reader’s eye.
He therefore insists that both body text and headlines should be selected according to clear standards.
First, the typeface should accommodate readers with different levels of vision.
Second, it should take account of differences in educational background. A simple typeface should therefore be selected to make reading easier.
Third, poor printing often causes the edges of letters to blur. To avoid this problem, the chosen typeface should have sharp, clear edges rather than excessively pointed ones.
For headlines, a single typeface should be used throughout the newspaper to avoid confusing readers.
Differences between headlines should be created through variations in size rather than by changing the typeface.
Headline lines should differ in length by approximately 5 to 15 per cent relative to the width of the columns in which they appear, leaving sufficient white space to make the headline stand out.
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When it comes to presenting headlines, Mirghani proposes three prohibitions that he believes daily newspapers should observe.
No to Coloured Headlines
From a visual perspective, colour tends to distract rather than focus the eye.
Moreover, when newspapers are displayed at sales points, sunlight and ultraviolet radiation may cause certain colours to fade or oxidise.
For example, a headline may appear partly green and partly blue if the yellow component of the ink deteriorates.
No to Coloured or Reversed Backgrounds
Backgrounds behind headlines can create confusion rather than emphasis.
No to Shadows
Shadows have little purpose in the headline of a daily newspaper, particularly when the easiest combination to read remains black type on white paper.
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Mirghani regards written material as comparable to a cinematic film, with typography functioning as its musical score.
Moving from light to bold type on the same page—for example, in interviews with questions and answers, or when separating two items on a single page—creates a visual rhythm.
This rhythm is important and may sometimes need to be strong, moderate or subdued, depending on the nature of the material.
In introductory paragraphs, type size performs the same function as background music by creating a higher rhythm than the remainder of the text.
The reader survey showed that the Yaqout typeface outperformed more than 15 other typefaces on the previously mentioned criteria, although it still did not meet every standard.
The most suitable body-text size was found to be 11-point type with 12-point line spacing, as this accommodated different levels of vision and reproduced well in print.
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For Mirghani, the photograph is a capsule capable of containing a large number of events and therefore deserves to share equal importance with the written text.
Precise criteria should consequently be applied when selecting photographs and assessing the amount of movement within them.
Two standards govern this process: the editorial standard and the technical standard.
The technical standard requires clarity of detail and sufficient depth within the image.
This can be achieved through variation in tonal density, which may be assessed by comparing the photograph with a tonal scale and measuring it with a standard densitometer.
When determining image size, an optimal visual ratio of 2:3 should be observed.
For example, if the width of a photograph is two units, its length should be three units.
No image should be published at a width narrower than one column.
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Mirghani’s new approach to newspaper design rests on three principal foundations:
the physics of vision;
journalistic professionalism; and
the psychological characteristics of the intended reader.
In visual physics, the method treats the paper’s white colour as an essential component of the design.
It makes extensive use of white space to create visual balance when emphasising a particular image or headline.
Observing this principle allows pages to flow like visual music, with clear text, headlines, and images that are easy to read under different lighting conditions and require less mental effort.
In relation to journalistic professionalism, headlines and photographs should be given prominence according to their editorial and informational importance, without exaggeration or sensationalism.
Designers should also observe ethical standards and respect all beliefs in headlines, images and written text.
The psychological element concerns designing the page to align with the intended reader’s age and educational level.
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Returning to the Beginning
Through this method, Abdel Hamid Mirghani may have given Sudanese journalism an important opportunity to move beyond the visual monotony that has long dominated its pages and towards a form of newspaper design that offers readers beauty of form, elegance of presentation and ease of access.
The significance of the written word—and of the manner in which it is presented across different publishing platforms—is that once it escapes our control, it can turn and become a judgement upon us.
It was this awareness that prompted Abdel Hamid Mirghani to develop his method.

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