MARAH SENDS ALONG a couple more pages for review, featuring a tribute to veterans of World War II.
FROM MARAH: I’ll submit our WWII pages we did commemorating the Pearl Harbor anniversary. I wish we could’ve had a photo of Keith Cooper in his service days like we had for the other two.
FROM ED:
1. I like the thinking behind the use of the “parchment” background but I’m not sure it really applies to the middle of the 20th Century. That look feels more like 1700s (The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence) to me. Perhaps a better background might have been a faded Page 1 from a newspaper on Dec. 8, 1941. Just a thought. I like the fact that you faded it behind the text type.
2. The centered type in the editor’s note is difficult to read. Better for it be flush left.
3. Why the extra space between paragraphs?
4. Text is not aligned to the baseline. It should be.
5. That nameplate cartoon makes The Times look just plain silly. W-h-e-n are you going to fix that!
6. Headlines make it look like this is two different stories. First, remembering Pearl Harbor, then it’s about a vet getting help. A bit confusing.
FROM ED:
Nicely done! This is so good I’d enter it in contests.
1. I like the two graphic elements on the outside edges.
2. The background seems to work better here than on page 1, though I’m not sure why I feel that way.
3. Did you consider making the photos sepia?
4. I agree with you on the Cooper pic. Did you consider running present-day pics of the other two vets?
I like it!
How about the rest of you? Thoughts? Suggestions?
I just saw that you had put this on your blog. I don’t know how I missed that.
Maybe it is the graphic styling (with the planes and linotype) that makes the inside parchment paper fit better than on the front.
I think the front page photo should be on the left, then the story of the vet, and then the side bar. That would possibly eliminate some confusion.
The space between paragraphs is in our stylesheets. Also, you’re right, we have no baseline grid. We were working on a redesign a little while ago and I incorporated one in there, but that’s all the farther we went.