KAZIA IS BACK for more help, with another photo page for our review and comment. You know the drill: Kazia’s note, then the page, then Ed’s thoughts. Then…we wait to see what you have to add to the conversation. Yes…it’s really that easy, so jump into the fun!
FROM KASIA:
Hi Ed – Not sure if you remember me, but I had sent you a note several months ago looking for feedback on a photo page.
Just thought you would like to see a photo page we’re running this week, applying a few of the suggestions you had made: more white space, and placing cuts adjacent to photos rather than in one cutline block.
We also have been using QR codes more and more frequently, and in this case we are using a QR code to direct readers to an online photo gallery where they can see more photos, which I think is a good application for QR. However, the goofy thing is that while we have a smartphone-ready website, not all parts are fully smartphone ready—and our photo gallery feature is one part that is not! Doh! (Hey, what can I say? We’re doing pretty respectably for a teeny community paper!)
With this photo page, one thing I know that designers at larger papers cringe at is the use of offbeat fonts and putting text over top of a photo. But hey, we know our audience, and we know they’ll appreciate the informality of the page!
Any feedback or suggestions are welcome. BTW, I love your blog & tips. Always great info!
Best regards,
Kasia
FROM ED:
Overall, I really like the page. It is informal and it is fun. More on that “offbeat font” later.
1. Nice work arranging the photos and pushing the negative space to the outside. The selection, sizing and play of the photos is good.
2. Not sure I like placing the QR code over the bottom right photo. Could you have put it just to the left of the bottom left corner of that pic, next to the credits?
3. Bolding the “directions” in the captions is certainly helpful.
4. Does it bother your readers not to have individual names on the people pictured here? It kinda bothers me.
5. Use of the “offbeat font” here works well…within the context of you knowing who your audience is and that they would appreciate the informality. So, I say “yes” here…but warn against making a habit of using funky fonts.
So…now we wait to see what others have to say.
Hi Ed – Thanks for the great feedback. I agree with you on the placement of the QR code, but I had some concern about how small I could make it and have it still work with a QR code reader. Plus, hardly anyone where we live knows what they are, so I felt I had to sort of “explain” with a little tag line beneath that invited people to use their smartphones to click on it to see more photos. I think you’re right, though, that maybe I could have put it to the left of that photo, below the one above it. Hindsight! :-)
I also agree that it’s less than ideal to not have the names of the people in the photos, but with one photog (me) scrambling to shoot a long and meandering parade, taking lots of pix and not knowing which I will actually use, it’s really impossible to get names! We normally ID people that appear in photos.
Thanks for the feedback! Anyone else?
The funky font is one I may have used before I started subscribing to Ed’s blog, but one I would NOT use since I have subscribed to Ed’s blog. However, it works fine here … and on the funky scale, it’s maybe a 3.
The white outline should go, however. I have a solution to a dark color drop shadow over a dark photo … it’s a double drop shadow where the first shadow under the solid type is white, then the second is black. It’s a more subtle approach but needs a lot of tweaking to get it right.
The lead photo of the parade could have been better … there’s too much pavement in the shot. A little movement either into the paraders or into the crowd would have compressed the distance between the two and made both elements appear closer together, thus eliminating the large amount of asphalt that takes up a substantial amount of the picture’s real estate.
Spacing between the photos is not consistent. The space between the dog pic and the girl waving pic is bigger than the space between the rest of the photos. That is distracting to me.
There’s a nice bit of white space to the right of the package, but none to the left, except for the bottom left corner. A little judicial cropping of the saluting photo on its left side could have added some white space and balanced the package a bit better.
Ed is right right right on the individual names thing … GET NAMES … A L W A Y S. Take a picture of people who are identifiable, then get their names. If not, then it doesn’t run. Period. Running pictures that show people close-up with no names is bad journalism. Even if it is a group of 20, get their names. I did it for many years … it’s doable, AND it sells papers.