Design of the Times
1900s
1903: The South China Morning Post was born.
The masthead is the identity of any newspaper. In the Post's first edition, the masthead was in an ornate gothic style, which undoubtedly would have been hand-rendered by a skilled artist. This grand style helped give the impression of authority and was similar to the mastheads of many newspapers at the time.
A century ago, advertisements made up the entire front page. Copy was set in a single serifed typeface but different sizes of type were used. Serif typefaces, like this one (as opposed to sans-serif faces, like the one used in the picture-caption lower down this page) are considered easier to read and continue to be used by the Post and most other newspapers. The complex production process at the time, where metal letters were individually set in a frame, limited the design options, but simple visual elements, such as thin black ruled lines, were used to separate advertisements.
1920s
