SCOTT IS A REGULAR contributor here, and he returns this week with four pages.
FROM SCOTT:
Hello Ed…hope all is well and that the summer is treating you well. I haven’t submitted any pages in awhile and thought I’d submit a few for review…one is a photo page and the other three are features pages. Thanks, Scott
FROM ED:
1. Overall, I like the look of the page.
2. The headline leaves me a bit flat. Might have been better to have written it as:
OPENING NIGHT
at the drama
3. Largest photo on the page really has little to do with the drama.
4. The second largest photo is an audience shot—before the play begins.
FROM ED:1. Caption is almost lost…but it’s placement puts it right in the way of the action here. Looks like this person is about ready to walk right into it.
2. Lead head type is OK, though I’d have used something bolder and more condensed. Did you think of using the headline font as the typeface for the drop initial?
3. Subhead is too newsy-dull for a feature front. I think there are other, more interesting ways to say this.
FROM ED:1. I really like this page design, overall.
2. Why is the lead letter in the headline not capitalized?
3. I’d have placed the “talking stones” head in the top right corner of the photo—where it’s not over a part of the sculpture. If this meant that the headline had to be a bit smaller, so be it. I think the sculpture is too important here to place the headline over it.
4. Again, the subhead is written too newsy-dull. Subheads, too, need to have some life. This one doesn’t.
FROM ED:1. Another newsy-dull subhead.
2. Lead head typeface needs more character. Verdana is a good font for web pages and the like, but it doesn’t have the same visual appeal as, say, Photina or Kepler or other classier typefaces.
3. The story would be more readable had it been set in two legs. This is just toooooooo wide, especially at the top.
4. Placing the caption over the photo just ruins the impact of the photo.
5. I’d have done a closer clipping path, with no fade. The head of the second person in the back is distracting. Cut out this one person alone, give him larger size…and you have a winner. Here, there are just too many distractions.
Thanks, as always, for your comments Ed. Glad you liked some of the work. It’s nice to see that I’m getting better…not good or great yet by any means, but at least better.
I’ll consciously work on writing my subheads in a more interesting fashion…they are quite dull after re-reading them…thanks!
Also, I’ll quit putting the captions over the photos…maybe underneath?
Could you recommend a couple of nice sans serif feature fonts that I could change to? I’m currently using Tahoma…
Ed’s notes aside, I like the design on talking stones page. The photos are solid art to work with from the get go.
While I agree with Ed that the Sequoyah story is too wide, I think I might have considered a left chimney of breakout material, maybe 1/4 or 1/3 depending on the grid.
And looking at the cutout, I can definitely see one reason to go the route you did, when you get into cutting out feathers and hair that fine, it can become a time constraints issue to make that work.
I really like your 25 years of education page. Nice effect and use of art.