The front-page banner of a newspaper announces the paper’s name, issue and date. The evolution of the front page banner of the Vashon-Maury Island Beachcomber, from the beginning of the paper in March 1957 to the current front page banner, is a fascinating way to measure some of the changes the island has experienced.

The front page banner on the very first issue of The Beachcomber of March 7, 1957, was a simple typeface banner.

The March 7, 1957, Beachcomber banner (Courtesy Photo).

Within a year, the banner took on a more rustic look when stylized logs replaced the stark typeface.

The May 28, 1958, Beachcomber banner (Courtesy Photo).

And then, on July 3, 1958, the frontpage banner designed by island artist Jac Tabor, who had painted the spectacular murals in the Vashon Theatre, was unveiled.

The July 3, 1958, Beachcomber banner (Courtesy Photo).

This quirky driftwood banner with seagulls, pilings, and an S.S. Vashon life ring continued to identify The Beachcomber into the early 1970s when the paper was sold to Jay Becker, who owned and edited the paper until Sound Publishing purchased it in 1996. In October 1972, the Jac Tabor driftwood logo was abandoned in favor of a more modern typeface banner that has remained since with minor modifications and updates, but essentially a similar “look.”

The Oct. 26, 1972, Beachcomber banner (Courtesy Photo).

The 1972 banner typeface is slightly italicized and has a florid swirl on the first B. This is not the harsh typeface of the initial banner in 1957, but a distinct move away from the artistic Jac Tabor look to a more conventional “typed” look.

This 1972 banner remained basically unchanged into the mid-1990s when Sound Publishing purchased The Beachcomber and added the local island newspaper to its chain of small weekly newspapers in Washington state and Alaska, and a weekly Spanish language newspaper, La Raza del Noroeste, for the Puget Sound region. Sound Publishing has owned The Beachcomber since 1996 and changes the banner to a more block-type font, and has kept the banner in some form similar to this 2015 banner.

The Aug. 5, 2015, Beachcomber banner (Courtesy Photo).

What to make of all this? Not much other than that the “Young Turk,” iconoclastic approach of Carl Nelson and John VanDevanter, who founded The Beachcomber in 1957, that was reflected in the counter-culture, alternative driftwood banner by Jac Tabor. That finally gave way to a more traditional typeface banner in the 1970s as times changed and a more corporate look came to identify our island newspaper.

The other thing that changed rather dramatically since 1957 is the cost of each issue. In 1957, a Beachcomber cost 10-cents. In 2019, an individual issue costs $1. But, for many of us, the price of local news is well worth the cost.

— Bruce Haulman is an island historian. Terry Donnelly is an island photographer.