Coca-Cola ad: Cute and cuddly

12.12.09: YOU GOTTA suspend your disbelief, just sit back and enjoy. Sheesh! It’s Christmastime! Think like you did when you were a kid!

The Christmas Song

12.11.09: TODAY’S GIFT comes from Nat King Cole, who had one of the most distinctive singing voices ever. “The Christmas Song” is one of the most popular songs of the season.

A Hannukah gift

12.10.09: CHRISTIANS HAVE one Christmas Day. But Hannukah is the gift that keeps on giving—for eight days. Today is the beginning of Hannukah and this video is a gift to all who partake in the Festival of Lights. Enjoy!

First of many…enjoy

12.09.09: I PROMISED YOU some fun clips for the Christmas season. Here’s the first. And come back often through Christmas Day…there’ll be a new gift for you here every day!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

November winners!

MY APOLOGIES for the delay on this. Chalk it up to my being busy.

Every month I name two winners—one for the best page submitted the previous month and one for best comment.

November’s winners are: Kristin Coker, for her “Grand walkabout” page, and Lauri Shillings, for her very helpful response to a plea for Christmas page ideas.

Both Kristin and Lauri are frequent contributors here and I appreciate their work and their responses.

Both are already recipients of 101 Henninger Helpful Hints, so they’ll receive a free pdf copy of my first book, Henninger on Design.

Congratulations to Kristin and Lauri!

Page from: Glen Argan | Western Catholic Reporter

GLEN ARGAN is Editor and General Manager of the Western Catholic Reporter in Edmonton, Alberta. With the first redesigned issue, the Western Catholic Reporter was named best designed church newspaper in Canada in its circulation size.

Glen took to heart my advice that he make use of the center spread for the lead feature story in each issue. Here’s one of Glen’s latest efforts. His note follows.

“You were asking people to send you pages to review. Well, here is a centrespread from our current issue. I am interested in hearing how you would have done it better.”

FROM ED: Glen’s note doesn’t offer much information on the elements and the page design, but here are some observations:

1. I don’t understand we’ve placed the Monstrance in the top left corner. Unless I missed something, I see no reference to this element in the story.

2. Are these Frassati’s skis? If not the photo can be misleading.

3. The vertical all-cap type to the left of the Frassati photo is distracting.

4. Widow at the top of the last leg of the story.

So, some nits on this page. But the use of the Frassati photo draws interest and the photos on the right add balance.

Your comments?

Pages from: Ann E. Clark | The Catholic Miscellany

ANNE IS A DESIGNER with some genuine talent. It was my pleasure to meet her this summer as I helped her and Editor Deirdre Mays with a redesign of The Catholic Miscellany, the diocesan paper here in South Carolina.

Here are a couple of pages Anne has submitted, looking for your feedback. Anne’s note follows:

“I’m taking the plunge and submitting two recent items for feedback.

The first is our most recent cover, on the ordination of a new priest, and I’m mostly happy with how it turned out.

The second, from the same issue, and is a Thanksgiving spread from school children. I liked the idea overall and we got good reproduction, but I think the execution leaves something to be desired. Would love any feedback/suggestions.

Many thanks.”

FROM ED: I like the cover—a lot. Certainly has impact.

Two things about the spread:

1. Putting a red headline at top, over a subhead in a deeper red, creates a color clash for me. Might’ve been better to have done the top headline in black or gray—or to have hand-drawn a headline that imitates the scrawl in the kids’ drawings.

2. The dotted border on the box is distracting. I know it wasn’t part of our design. Let’s work together to develop a better option for these.

So…now we need to hear from the rest of you. What feedback can you give Anne?

Page from: Kristin Coker | The Times and Democrat

THE MACY’S THANKSGIVING PARADE was the impetus for this page from Kristin.

Her note follows.

“Thought I would send another page along.

We had a local dance group attend the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade last year and were invited back again this year as well.
I wanted to make the page fun and colorful. I used some of the pictures that the girls had taken previously and our photographer took some new pictures of the girls rehearsing. I downloaded a media kit from MacysThanksgivingParade.com and used their logo and one of their balloons near the top.

We also had an AP generated story about Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade and I started it on the front as well. I know you don’t like reverse type on stories, but, I wanted to make a statement and to make it really pop. I changed the font type to 10.5 on 12.5 and made it bold. (It printed beautifully.)

So, let me hear it!”

FROM ED: I’m really glad to see your notation about reverse type. Using type bolder and larger certainly is the key. What you didn’t mention—but it’s important, too!—is that you used a sans serif font (Benton? Franklin Gothic?). That’s a big help because sans serif bold has a much more uniform stroke weight than a serif. So, though I don’t like reverses much at all, you did it right!

For what it’s worth, the photos do a great job of localizing this page.

One minus: The element behind the Kermit balloon is kinda distracting. I can’t tell if it’s a star…a bunch of bananas…what?

How about the rest of you. Thoughts? Comments? Chime in!

Help from: Lauri Shillings | Journal Review

I SOMETIMES FORGET what it is that makes this blog so important to me. Then someone comes along who asks for help—and  (better yet!) someone else comes along to offer that help.

The latest was the request from Stu Neilson. See “Seeking your ideas…” three posts down from here.

Stu was asking for ideas for a Christmas week front page. I offered some comments and asked you for other ideas.

Then comes this note from Lauri Shillings:

“I’m too much of a visual person to just write down my ideas, better to sketch and send on. Hope you can decipher my chicken scratching. Seems he would need to explain why these wishes were on the page. If I were a reader, I would want to know if these were just fun things to read about, or if they were a plea to help out for Christmas.

Here are 2 ideas for him…. since he wanted to avoid the photos, this seemed more like it should be an interior page, rather than the front. Not sure what his color capabilities are.

Also wondered if the Christmas wish was just a posting of the kids wishes, or if they had a ‘wish tree’ that they were trying to help less fortunate kids with. Could be a good public tie-in if these wishes were on a wish tree in the lobby or something. That might be too much since he’s doing 12 jobs right now anyway. Best of Luck on that, Stu!”

Lauri’s sketches follow.

Here’s the rest of the story: After Lauri shared her ideas with Stu, he sent her a pdf of a page that ran some years ago…a page strikingly similar to the “tree” idea Lauri had suggested.

Here it is:

Proof again: What goes around comes around.

What about you? Any ideas for Stu? I’ll be happy to pass them along.

Pages from: Will Franklin | The Herald

TWO SUBMISSIONS from Will Franklin, assistant news editor/sports at The Herald here in Rock Hill, SC.

Will’s pages follow, with his note below.

“I’ve included two ‘things’ for you in this email. The first is a recent page I did. I’m not really sold on the concept, but in a strange way, I kind of like it. (Again, not sure why)

The other is a centerpiece illustration I did for the Winthrop men’s basketball preview. This was a last-minute thing thrown on me and I was frantically trying to figure out what to do. This idea popped into my head and I ran with it. As always, it was one of those things that looked much, much better in my head than on paper, but I have had two of the players in the illustration ask me to send them copies of what I had done, so I take that as a decent sign.

Anyway, I’d love to know what you and others think.”

FROM ED: The sports front feels kinda static to me, though I really like the play you gave to the lead photo in the Gilmore package. I think you could have trimmed a half-inch off the top of the secondary photo. Perhaps taking the Gilmore package text flush left would have helped open up the page a bit. I also think the Spiller photo would have been much more effective if you had cropped more tightly on the left side, taking out the person wearing the ball cap.

I’m good with the Winthrop preview cover, though I don’t go for outlined type. But the approach is good. My question: Why was this a “last minute thing?” Sheesh! Don’t the folks at The Herald know when the men’s baskeball season is about to start? Seems to me this is something we should be planning for in August!

What about the rest of you. Comments?