SOME INTERESTING WORK on special section covers comes to us from Production Director Shannon Leete at the Mt. Pleasant News in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa.
From Shannon’s note:
“These are all from last year, but I would like some input about the designs themselves, as I usually don’t get much more feedback than ‘Oh, that looks good.’
We usually have pretty free reign when it comes to tab/special section/insert covers. We have a short list of essentials (date, run date, logo) and from there it’s whatever we decide. Most of our tabs are short (16” long) sheets, and usually restricted to two color. Rarely we get a full color, or full (news) page.
‘Winter Sports tab cover’ was created in Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. Since we only have the two sports in winter, I had a lot of space to work with, so I decided to make use of the many schools we cover and use their names for graphics. Two colors, spot red and black.
‘Back to School Cover’ was created mostly in Illustrator (yes, I’drew’ most of it myself.), and finished in InDesign. There are a few graphic flaws on the page that I never had time to remedy. Two color, spot red and black.
‘2008 Progress Cover’ was created mostly in Photoshop and finished in InDesign. I usually relegate Photoshop to doing photos, but I find it’s easiest to create type masks in. The spacing is odd due to a printer/tiling issue we have when printing out full size pages. Since it was four color, I had to basically design it in sections that would fit on one sheet each, then strip them up on film. To me it looks “off.”
I was very excited to hear about your blog, and hope to post on it regularly. I like getting feedback on my work and, hopefully, progress as a designer.”
FROM ED: I like the effort here—a lot. But I think you may be trying too hard—especially on the Progress cover. The photos in the type are just too difficult to “read” and the different sizes and placement of the type just become too much to deal with. My advice: Look for more structure and more consistency. Fewer typefaces, more discipline. And keep coming back here with more pages—we’ll help you as you progress!
How about the rest of you? What advice would you give Shannon?