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When the Gray Lady Started Wearing Color
The Times was one of the last American daily newspapers to add color to its news pages. Here’s why.
When The New York Times first considered printing in color in the early 1990s, it did not go over well with some.
Steven Heller, the former art director of The New York Times Book Review, remembered his skepticism.
“It’s so silly now, but at the time I said never,” he said. “I mean, we were the old Gray Lady. I didn’t see us putting on new clothes.”
As fate would have it, it was the Book Review under his helm that was the first section of the paper to print something in color. The year was 1993, and the cover greeted readers with a striking illustration of a bright green and orange serpent.
“We were the testing ground for it,” Mr. Heller recalled. “It was the Book Review; we dealt in illustrations, not photos, so if anything went wrong with the colors, it was no big deal.”
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