Design thread

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/15*

Sorry, but that line made me laugh.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/15*

Pages like this remind me how much I suck. A very impressive job.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/15*

I agree, very impressive. I love the color, the organization.

And all those jerseys were created from scratch? Any attempt to get, say, the 40 or so shoo-in teams and requesting a pic of the jerseys? Or would that have created too much of an image-quality difference?

My other question is what will the paper's treatment be of the women's brackets? Women's hoops is hot up there, and UM has an 8 seed...

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/15*

At my old job as SE of a 12-paper weekly chain, we had a design staff; so I just gave them my ideas and had them implement them. Then I moved on to a daily, and had to learn InDesign on the fly. And since everyone there was relatively new to InDesign, I was unable to ask many questions regarding the more visually stunning capabilities of the program. Also, when it came to design, the paper was very old-fashioned and regimented, and unwelcome toward change or thinking out of the box.

So I've basically only been designing first-hand for about two months, and I don't get a chance to do it often because I'm usually covering a game or working on a 2,000-word feature. But I'm trying to make myself more well-rounded in the business, so I'm posting a few of my design examples.

I'm sure most of the people who post here will rip these examples to shreds, and that's fine. I know I'm not a designer by trade, so my ego can handle it. But any constructive criticism you could bring would be appreciated.

So rip away.  ;D

p.s. Thanks to Carrie Bradshaw for her help

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/15*

Chi City... No rips ... but a few observations. Most of these things are easily fixable:

> Watch out for those InDesign effects, especially the drop shadow. Used in extreme moderation, it can effective.

> Also watch the color type ... it tends to clutter up the page.

> On that all-star page, rather than cutting out Wade and Dirk, I wonder if it might have been more effective to just mug them at the bottom of the page. Thinking this for two reasons: 1) The photos aren't really showing me a whole lot and 2) It'd really give more impact to the dunk package, where you have some cool photos.

> Watch those hed specs: I really want some more information in the main Artest hed than "Done deal" ... you really need more than two lines (I'm thinking four: Kings finally acquire Artest"?). Two other things: There are three hammer-heds on that page ... at most you want to have one ... more than that is really over-doing it, and sapping the impact of the main hammer. Finally, those bottom of the page heds are HUGE. Ratchet the size on those down to the 32-40 range ....

> On the Tiger package: Some form of breakout box on his 10 years on tour would have been nice to accompany the centerpiece.

Eh, that's all for now ... it's 2:30 a.m. and I've got to be back here in like four hours, ... so I'm outta here ... hope this helps a bit...

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

Also ... Carrie, thanks much for the plug on the sports design sesssion .... If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to drop me a site-mail, e-mail, instant message (crukan on AIM) or whatever other way you prefer to get in touch.... hope to see a bunch of you there!

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

You seem to have a lot of right ideas, but a few pointers that helped me when I was starting out:

1) Gadgets are like a drunk ex-girlfriend. In the right circumstances, used sparingly and wisely, they can hook you up with good stuff. Go to the well one too many times and you're in trouble. One too many cutouts, one too many drop shadow heds (one is almost always too many, the instances where drop shadowed heds look good are few and far between) ... you get the idea. (Example your All-star page ... you may have been better off choosing one of the dunk photos and running it big, running one hed then subheading each of the individual stories. Give the reader something to focus on immediately and shy away from colored heds).
2) Don't be afraid to break grid on the front, do shy away from it on the inside (though I understand this is a point of preference and/or style).
3) Look at and learn from as many well-designed sections as you get get your hands on. Don't just look at covers, look at every page. What do they do that both works and can be easily brought into your section? Don't bite off more than you can chew, though. Especially look at inside pages. Designers (guilty here, too) put a lot of focus on covers, but a shitty looking daily baseball page will draw a lot more attention, and turn a lot more people off, than a brilliant daily cover will turn them on.
4) Simplicity and subtlety go a long way. You do not need to know photoshop, poser or illustrator to be a solid designer.
5) Be correct, be useful, be attractive. Always in that order.
6) The best designers I've ever met also were the best time managers.
7) Be aware of hedline size (example: your perfect 10/Insiders page).
8 ) If you have no desire to be the greatest designer on the planet, be very solid. Better to be plain than gaudy. Look at the Washington Post. Their sports fronts are clean and witout frills most every day. You can see each morning's at sportsdesigner.com (don't let the good work shown off there discourage you from trying things, but don't let it be your bar of excellence, either ... play to your strengths).
9) Once or twice a month is about as often as you're going to "WOW" a reader with anything. Keep that in mind. If you set out to blow people's minds 365 days a year you'll never be able to actually blow their minds when you have a reason to.

Good luck, and have fun. Design is the part of this business I fell in love with, and even if it's not what you want to focus on, it's not difficult to put out good looking sections every day.

Also, run the AP bylines as often as possible and kill the (AP) bugs. Let people know who wrote the stories as often as possible. Though that may also be a style thing.

Hope the ramblings give you something to chew on and best of luck! Hope you get some more (hopefully more useful) advice. Work on it a little bit and come back in with some new stuff.

-- me

Edit: To add rule No. 9.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

Superb point, Hiro. We as designers really do tend to think sometimes that our night begins and ends with our cover. But what separates an outstanding sports section from a mediocre one is that the outstanding one holds up through the entire section, not just the section front.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

chi city... usually you should be able to gauge where a section is from based on story selection. the only stories that gives me a guess are the one about a former griz quarterback and rodeo, so i'm guessing montana? just struck me as odd that everything was ap. even at a one-man shop, i'd expect at least one staff story a day, and it just seems odd to have none. (i know this isn't directly design, but do beleive story selection and play are critical parts of design)

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

Hoops,

The two fronts were Thursday editions, and there are no local sports on Wednesdays here. That's why I usually got to design those pages that day.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

gotcha, but why not have some sort of canned feature, or weekly local trend piece?

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 3/17*

Because I usually welcomed Wednesdays as my lone day to design and not have to write, and the SE seldom wrote anything. I five months I had twice as many bylines as the SE and the other sports writer combined. Why waste my time with a canned feature? When I write on something at length, I want it to have a purpose.