By now, you’ve heard the news: Former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has signed with the Denver Broncos.
This is — and will be — huge news in Denver. And perhaps in Florida as well, because the smart money is saying that the Broncos will now try to deal Tim Tebow to the Jaguars, putting Tebow back into his hometown of Jacksonville, Fla.
I’m writing this at 8:30 a.m. in Nigeria, which is 3:30 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time and only 1:30 a.m. in Denver. So no, I’ve not yet seen front pages from Colorado or anywhere else.
So it was with delight that I received an email overnight from Bill Campling of Gannett’s Nashville Design Studio.
Bill writes:
You make a point to highlight exceptional design. But some great pages never make it to print.
Merry [Eccles] was asked to come up with a page for The Tennessean if Peyton Manning signed with the Titans. She then also decided to do another page if Manning decided to sign elsewhere. Manning coming to Nashville would have been huge, but the disappointment of him going elsewhere is nearly as big.
Oh, what a fabulous job Merry did on these. This first one is brilliant enough. Can you imagine the buzz around town if this page had hit the streets?
But, alas, that didn’t happen.
Now I’m not sure what the Tennessean will go with for Tuesday’s front. Because I’ll be tied up today — teaching sports graphics and design, as luck would have it — you’ll likely see the page before I will. But here’s a proposal Mary made — a path not taken, evidently.
Funny stuff!
Merry most likely isn’t aware of this, but I’ve seen a similar idea used before. It was by the Forum of Fargo, N.D., when the Saints knocked the Vikings out of the NFC Championship game in January 2010:
Bill closes by writing:
Of course, there are a billion pages out there that never see the light of day. But I thought these two that she did (which in the end will only exist on her computer) were particularly cool.
I enjoy Merry’s work quite a bit. I’ve written about her a number of times lately, most notably here.