AS I MENTIONED in last week’s post, I was holding two of Michael Smith’s page submissions back, hedging in case there were no submissions this week. Glad I did, because there were no submissions this week.
Michael’s pages and his brief notes follow. I chime in with some comments.
This time, I used a giant penny instead of a giant basketball. I took one blogger’s advice to put editorial content/info boxes inside of giant art.
FROM ED: I like the big penny…well, with some reservations. First, it looks more like gold than copper. Second, that blotch growing out of Lincoln’s forehead (to the left of “Breaking news” is really distracting. So, would I “fix” the penny in Photoshop? In a moment—and without any qualms whatsoever. This is an illustration, not a “frozen moment” or a piece of historic photojournalism. It’s a penny—and I would do with it anything that makes it look more like a penny. So…puhleeeze…no “ohmigod” comments from you photojournalists.
One other thought: I’m a bit (only a bit) troubled by the “Part of a continuing series…” note to the top left of the penny. I’d have put it somewhere else with the sole purpose in mind of just leaving that space empty. Seems to me the package needs that just to breathe a bit—everything else is tightly wrapped around the penny.
All that said, I still think it’s a package with strong impact. Dunno how a reader could not want to dive right in!
This was our Jan. 7 sports section front. Whenever using two stories about the same subject, I try to use photos completely different from each other.
FROM ED: Not a big deal, but I prefer the smaller photo—only because it shows me a different angle. I feel like I’ve seen the photo at top a bajillion times. I do like the “Panthers tighten their grip” overline. Works nicely with the lead photo.
OK…enough from Ed. Now it’s your turn. Comments? Criticisms? Michael can take it!
The penny page is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time, the graphic is very eye-catching, and I like the way you used the open sections of the penny to include more information. The headline above it is perfect.
One quibble – the story jumps right in the middle of a last name. I’m sure it was tough to get the text right with the curve there, but I think I’d have left a little gap and jumped after “John” instead of “John Fes-.”
I can’t imagine walking by a copy and not picking up that edition.
I love the penny page! I’ll have to try that. I often run into trouble getting art that’s high-enough resolution to blow up like that.
Our high school’s championship sport is wrestling, too. For some reason, none of our sports guys have ever been able to take a wrestling photo that doesn’t look at least a little obscene. It makes it an act of will not to play down the photo on the page.
The second wrestling photo goes really well at the bottom, because the image of the boys’ heads down gives the impression of them straining under whole page’s weight.
One thing jumped out at me with the wrestling page. The headlines on the top and right bottom story have too much leading. I don’t “read” them as one head.
I concur with Linda – the line leading threw me at first glance and I had trouble getting past that – in my head it’s a distraction that affects how I view the whole package. In addition, the single line headline, the photo credit/caption under the main photo and the caption under the secondary photo all have WAY too much line leading.
On the penny page: The growth coming out of Lincoln’s forehead totally distracts me. I would have retouched that way early on in the design process. And I agree with Ed: The penny needs to be more copper, less gold.
Thanks everyone. The penny was a photo I took on my desk. That’s probably why it looks the color it does. Didn’t even notice the smudge by Lincoln’s head, though :). Thanks, though, for the feedback. We do a lot of investigative work into white collar stories that are hard to illustrate graphically with our limited staff (hate to give excuses, but I also wrote the story too..)
On wrestling, sometimes photo selection is also about pleasing parents. Sometimes it goes against great design, but as an editor I’ve found parents love seeing their kids in print, no matter what the design is :) On the leading, it is the original leading from our redesign. I’m hesitant to alter it without further consultation from an expert.
I hafta agree with Michael on the leading in the headlines. I think the spacing is fine. Perhaps a bit too much for some folks but the open leading helps to give the page a more comfortable feel.
By the way, I’ve got more pages coming soon. I’m really glad everyone’s taking time to look at my pages and commenting on them. I hope to have even more pages coming soon. I really want this blog to grow because anything page design related can only help all of us!!!!!