Since London 2012 kicked off, we’ve seen increasingly impressive front page design in an effort to shift print editions.

My personal favourites have been the Times wraparounds, largely due to the clean design. They allow strong photojournalism to speak for itself, have smart headlines, and include some subtle yet informative detail. Their Wiggins wraparound has been my favourite, the logo turned gold, and the Olympic rings reflected in the rider’s visor, topped off by an entertaining quote:

And I expect it’s worked; London specifically has a larger audience to sell to, and with the help of smart design, the newsstands have become a battleground of colour and snappy headlines.

Sadly though, it can’t last. Even if newspaper sales have had a slight resurgence this week, it will be short-lived. As our print editions die away, as is inevitable given current trends, where will the impact that an exciting front page design can wield move to?

Online news sites, in their current form, don’t offer the same potential for impact. The same powerful photojournalism exists, along with the same words- but when it’s a scaled down form, plastered with animated Jet2 ads, the essence of the original front page is long gone. News websites just aren’t a platform for appreciating great design. Maybe it’s something to do with not being able to hold the page, and see the size of it.

Tablets are one answer to the problem, with slick design elements being a priority for many news apps. But it’s not really like you’ll see all the front pages compete for your attention like you would at a newsstand. Chances are, you’ll subscribe to one.

Every night, my Twitter stream has taken to praising the front pages (#tomorrowspaperstoday), and rightly so. But how many of us actually go out and then buy a paper? It all seems a bit shallow, and front page impact looks to become a thing of the past if we continue to praise the front page, yet refuse to pay for it, and also refuse to look for a way of preserving that impact.

I think one problem is our design process is the wrong way round when it comes to creating impact in for a “front page story” online. The front page is always made in print first and then forced backwards into an online mould, and the impact is always lost. So much for digital first. News orgs should treat the two independently, and with equal weighting. Why not have someone change the first thing you see when you land on a homepage for a greater effect? Rejig the CSS, have big colours, and exciting text – hell, take up the whole screen if needs be. I’ve always thought this is a good example of big impactful design filling your screen, and it makes a point too.

One experiment I’ve seen recently that offers step in the right direction, even if it doesn’t always work out perfectly (and is a little scary at times), is the Guardian’s Headliner site: “it creates a newspaper that looks at you while you look at it”. It has large automatically generated background header images, with a big headline over the top. The header images use an API that recognises the face in the article image, and zooms in on it. The whole paper exists in this format everyday, and it’s by no means the best thing ever, but I think the design of the top of the page is at least interesting- and has the potential to carry some of the impact of a front page.

Do you think we’ll lose the powerful front page when print editions finally die? Is there a way of preserving and replicating that effect? And are we going about it in the right way? Comment or tweet your thoughts @wannabehacks.