MICHAEL SMITH sends along four more pages for your review and comment. Michael’s designs have brought him awards and acclaim during the past few years and it’s a gift to have him sharing his ideas here.
April 30, 2009 —This was our A1 for the edition reporting on the April 22 wildfire, which burned about 20,000 acres. Running good fire photos wasn’t enough. Since this week was special, we deleted our Column 1 teaser rail and temporarily replaced it with a large info box with important wildfire information, including everything from school delays to road closings.
May 7, 2009 – We used assorted art images to illustrate our third tax accountability story that focused on funding to arts groups.
May 28, 2009 – Similar to the arts group funding investigation, this week we reported on sports tourism funding, which was substantially higher. All along I knew I wanted a giant basketball somewhere. I also allowed the graduation cap teaser to protrude into the copy slightly for artistic effect.
June 18, 2009 – This is one of my favorite designs because it bends the rules slightly. I wanted the entire tourism tax investigation package to appear as one giant art image. I also wanted the layout to provide information and tell the story. Angling the photos also points the reader where I want them to go on the page, eventually leading them to the actual story, of which only four column inches actually appears on A1.
S0…what do you think? Do these pages work? Why? Why not? Please send your comments!
