Good or fail?

Or, perhaps, FAIL? Our top 10 stories of the year...



Bigger version here:

http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/fullsize_view.php?PageID=208008

I honestly have no idea if I struck out or at least got an infield single. Our EE liked it, for what it's worth...

 

Honestly? I don't like it. I don't like the numbers over the photos and the way it's organized is not very attractive. It almost looks like an inside page, except with color.

If it were me, I would have come up with some type of title and made the No. 1 story the centerpiece - in the middle of the page - with the other nine around it.

Obviously it's a good try, but I just think it came up short.

 

I think it's pretty good. It's a different design on the usual year-end reviews. I like it.

 

I like the idea behind the page, you just have too many things on here that are distracting.

You're pretty much did the same thing that Brian Gross at the Boston Globe just did:

http://www.newspagedesigner.com/users/754/Patriots123007.jpg
See how much cleaner and easier his page is to read? Let the photos tell the story too, putting the numbers on top of them makes the photos harder to read. And what's more important, seeing a huge "1" or seeing the faces of the people?

Also, do you really need all the different type treatment in the flag? The gradient on the numbers, the back and forth between black and gray type on the words. It's a little distracting to do both design tricks.

This page is close to being really good, it just needs to be a little cleaner.

 

Good points. Sometimes simpler is better.

 

Looks similar to the page I did for our Year in Review issue. Do you guys like this any better?

And before you ask, it's a small town and a small, weekly paper. Sometimes I get color and sometimes I don't, depending on advertising. This particular week I didn't, which I think really hurts the value of this page, but any feedback is appreciated.



Bigger version here:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a118/palmerjz/1B_010208_FGNT.jpg

 

I like the organization of the page, but something about it, maybe it's the border on the numbers, seems a bit clunky to me. The same concept was pulled off in the examples below yours where the numbers were less obtrusive. I leave your page wondering what's more important, the photos, the text, or the big numbers.