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?

Pages from: Lauri Shillings | Journal Review

HERE ARE THREE PAGES from an auto preview section prepared by Lauri Shillings. Lauri’s note follows.

“Ed,

Attached are 2 pages from our recent auto preview guide.

This advertising piece comes out annually. We get the editorial content from a service, but it is up to me to package it and make it pop.

Front page ties in the auto dealer sponsor  ad (and their car of choice) with the editorial content for that car.
Back page mimics the feel of the unusual ad on the front in color and type style.

Yes, I know there are color blocks on the front page… This time it is actually my doing instead of the newsroom’s. I tried working the page both ways (with and without color) and I really liked how the slate blue anchored the text on the right…. and it tied in better with the ad on the bottom.

I’ve sent the examples of both color versions.

Comments? Always willing to listen to good feedback from your readership.”

FROM ED: Given the far superior level of press work we’re getting these days—compared with only a few years ago—my objection to tint blocks and gradient screens is softening. I still have a strong problem, though, with the gratuitous use of color and tint blocks placed over stories without good design reasoning (a la your newsroom).

So, I really don’t object to the use of the gradient screen over the story at the right. And I think that the use of the reverse in the lead package is very effective—if it came off the press OK.

I think I’d not have used the slate blue, though. Instead, I’d have mimicked the gray in the ad at the bottom of the page. You’ll note that the gray in the ad takes on a warmer, tannish tone as it nears the bottom of the page. I think that clashes a bit with the coolness in the slate blue.

Otherwise, I think this is really nice!

How about the rest of you. What do you think?

 

Seeking your ideas for a Christmas front

STU NEILSON IS, according to his note, the “Managing Editor, graphic ‘designer,’ ad salesman, delivery person, janitor…” at the Town Crier in Wilmington – Tewksbury, MA

He’s looking for some help with ideas to replace their Christmas front page. Stu writes:

“For the past several years we have run a Christmas front page (above) with photos of all the cutest kids decked out for their Christmas photos.

But . . .

With the downturn we’ve had some attrition—namely my graphic artist has taken another job and the publisher has not replaced him.

Add another hat to the stack I’m already wearing.

Managing and producing all those photos on my schedule is out.

My ad sales lady (part time—only 45 hours a week) came up with an idea which would be less challenging photo-wise, but still involve the community. It’s a Christmas Wish page. We would solicit wishes from the public on a special e-mail address and publish the best 50 or 100.

Now the challenge—design.

Has anyone, or do you, had a great design for a page like that?

Thanks.”

FROM ED: My idea, Stu, would be to take some of the better submissions and to feature them in a childlike scrawl on the front, using crumpled paper, colored construction paper and crayons and pencils to imitate the writing of kids. Put them together in a kind of collage and shoot some photos, using that for your page 1 visual.

How about the rest of you? Any ideas to offer Stu?

A treat for Thanksgiving

AS I WAS SEARCHING for a visual for the Thanksgiving header, I came across these wonderful old Thanksgiving greeting cards.

I thought I would share them as my Thanksgiving gift to all of you. Enjoy…and…Happy Thanksgiving!

Ed

Page from: Marc Stumbo | The Beacon

JUST WHEN I WAS THINKING it had been a while since hearing from Marc Stumbo, he sends along this page for your comments. Marc’s notes follow.

“Just another centerfold with a mixture of Catholic News Service and Beacon archived photos. I tried to give it reasonable white space. Popped out the first graph to serve as an additional graphical element. Used my Page Topper style to identify the subject so I didn’t have to use the long name of the basilica in the headline or kicker. Our archived photos give it local flavor as does our tiny sidebar used as an inset box.

Wonder if anyone will pick up on a typography mistake I made: I initially used the OS (Old Style) face in our body font Charter, but didn’t like the old style lower-height numerals, so I changed it back to regular…except on the centered, larger first graph—you can see the number “10” is still in the old style font. I missed that one. It’s all in the details…”

So…what are your thoughts? Too symmetrical? Too much typography? Nicely done? Anything you’d do differently?

The last time Marc submitted his work, there were no comments. Let’s give Marc the benefit of our collective wisdom with some constructive feedback!

Statue of Liberty—18,000 strong

A FRIEND SENT THIS my way recently. I hear it’s been around before, but I thought it would be a treat for those (like all of us!) who enjoy visuals with a different approach.

This photo was shot in 1918. It’s a representation of the Statue of Liberty created by positioning 18,000 men at Camp Dodge, Iowa.

FACTS:
Base to shoulder:  150 feet
Right arm:  340 feet
Widest part of arm holding torch:  12 1/2 feet
Right thumb:  35 feet
Thickest part of body:  29 feet
Left hand length:  30 feet
Face: 60 feet
Nose: 21 feet

Longest spike of head piece: 70 feet
Torch and flame combined: 980 feet
Number of men in flame of torch: 12,000
Number of men in torch: 2,800
Number of men in right arm: 1,200
Number of men in body, head and balance of figure only: 2,000

Total men: 18,000

Another request for quick help!

FROM A CLIENT PUBLISHER comes this request for quick help:

“We are mass mailing our newspaper to everyone in our county on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.

We need to make a great impression.

In our Arts&Entertainment section front we are planning a holiday calendar.

By any chance do you have an samples of designs for something similiar you could pass along?”

I’ve sent him a note saying I had no such calendar in my files—but that I was placing his appeal on my blog and he should check here occasionally.

If you have ideas, please send them along in a quick comment.

Better yet, if you have holiday calendar pages in your files, please send them to me ASAP and I’ll forward them.

Attach them to an e-mail to: edh@henningerconsulting.com

Thanks!

Page from: Scott Hunter | The Star

HERE’S SOMEONE who needs our help…now!

Scott Hunter is Editor and Publisher at the Star and NorthStar in Grand Coulee, WA.

Here’s the cover Scott is working on. His note follows.

“Ed,

Here’s a cover work-in-progress that I’m not terribly happy with. Comments from the community would be very welcome.

NorthStar is a new quarterly publication covering the residents of the Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state. This will be the second issue. The photo is of the veterans who attended a Veteran’s Day service at a memorial sculpture in front of tribal headquarters. I intend to ID those in the photo inside the publication.

The graphical elements at right referring to stories inside worked well on the first cover, but seem out of place here. I’m thinking of centering them on the page. (The content of those is old, from last issue.)

Thanks for this useful blog. I enjoy it and marvel at some of the creative work posted.

Scott Hunter”

FROM ED: I think you’re on the right path with your idea of centering the inside refers. There’s a lot of sky you can use here to do just that. I’d also like to see a headline that gives me a sense of what the photo is all about. One more suggestion: I’d redesign the “News and Views…” underline so it’s all-caps sans serif in white. Drop the shadow. The underline is just too busy now. Also, stretch it with some extra spacing if needed so it goes completely under the nameplate, from the “N” to the “r”. I think that will give you a cleaner look.

Thoughts from the rest of you? Let’s give Scott some other ideas—and soon!

Another update: You’re gonna like this!

I’VE HEARD FROM some readers that they’d like to be able to see submitted pages in greater detail.

The latest comment on this came a couple of weeks ago (I’ve been busy, OK???!!!) from Joel Martin, Webmaster and Special Sections Editor at the Columbia Basin Herald. Joel wrote: “Ed, here’s a thought. Can you upload pictures at a larger size and then scale them down for the blog post? Blogger does graphics that way, with a link in the picture so you can embiggen it. I’d be surprised if WordPress couldn’t do the same. That way we can get a closer look at the details.”

OK…you got it!

Future pages will have a link (all ya gotta do is click on the page) to a larger image so you can see all the good stuff in detail.

That is…unless I forget.

Try it out here, with this mockup of a page I recently created for a client.

 

 

An update from Ed

AS ALWAYS, I need your help to keep this blog going. No pages…no comments…no blog.

To this point, we’ve been pretty lucky: just when it seems there won’t be any pages on a given week, someone offers a submission. So we’re making it happen, but just…

Thanksgiving is around the corner. Then Christmas. Then New Year’s Day. Then SuperBowl.

So here’s an idea: Send me your special section fronts (or spreads), your front pages, your holiday features fronts, your Sports pages for SuperBowl (and the day after!). If only a half-dozen of you send pages—and get your designers and editors to join in—we’ll have lots of submissions.

Scrambling for pages is something I just never thought I’d have to do. This is just taking longer to catch on than I thought. So gather up those pages soon and send them this way.

And please spread the word! This blog is for you and your colleagues. The more submissions, the more readers, the more comments…the better.

This blog can become an important tool for news designers and editors—but only if we have more designers and editors join in the fun.

Send your pages to: edh@henningerconsulting.com.

Thanks.