We Don't Get French Benefits?

My first week as a news designer was....interesting. I am trying to learn the style as quickly as possible, and each night I learned something new. Hopefully by next week I'll have the style down enough to be able to play more with my pages.

Here's my 1A from Thursday:



I actually had a few people tell me they liked the spread, including Rick Shaw, the photo editor, which is always good. I liked playing the photo large, but it threw off all my column sizes on the page. I still like it, but technically it's not kosher 'news design' wise. But they way I see it, I'm a mag designer....I'm suppose to push buttons.

Here's my second front from Wednesday: (my first night)



For my first night out, I was pleased. The spacing is off, because you can't expect me to get everything right the first time out. The 'what's up with that' display type was created by yours truly. It's a little cluttered there at the bottom, but I guess that's news design for you: stressful hours and accepting mediocrity if it's deadline.

Friday's Second Front



I originally had a blub above the headline of the swim feature, but it had to be taken out for space...so sad. I am a goddess at getting things to fit...see the left side of the page? It's called skillz.

Here's my first feature post-class. The story was about a German lady who grew up under the Third Riceh(sic) and eventually came to America and married a GI. Interested memoir, I tried to play up the old photographs she gave me to get a photo-album feel. I wanted to repeat the old border in the spread, and settled with the Illustrator template, it works pretty well, but possibly is a little more treasure map than old photo. The color looks light because our press runs everything darker. It comes out tomorrow:

Here's the spread:

Here is my second Vox cover.



Again, because the feature was about a gay Bunston mayor, we were forced to put a department on the cover. My biggest challenge was keeping it appealing to our audience, as opposed to five-year-olds. By using only part of the recognizable Big Bird face, it leaves the readers wanting more; as well as giving them just enough image there to be able to remember back to their youth and fill in the blanks with their own sesame street memories.

The background color makes the entire page look like a coloring book, but in the end I just had to embrace that..and I think it works.