Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Hey guys. I'm new to the designing pages thing and recently put together a page I was pretty proud of. If you could leave me feedback and tell me what you liked/what you hated, I would greatly appreciate it.

Also, if you'd like I'll comment on anything you have as well.

Here's the page.




Background: This section was our paper's local coverage of the Rhode Island Interscholastic League's boys and girls outdoor track championships.

For a bigger look-> http://www.newspagedesigner.com/portfolios/fullsize_view.php?PageID=223966

 

There's no hierarchy to your page. That's the first thing that jumped out at me.

 

I like the masthead laid on top of the dominant photo and the cutline text inlaid in the top photo.
BACK ON TOP, your attention grabbing headline, should be at the top of the page, rather than stuck between the two photos. I don't know what story or element it relates to.
I question putting the second place finish at the top of the page if the BACK ON TOP is related to the Avengers first place finish. Seems to me that's your big story and should be the dominant element. I'd flip that around perhaps.
Is it a style thing to use subheads under every headline, or was that a personal choice? Just seems head/subhead four times on a page is overuse of that particular element unless its something the paper insists on. A pullquote or a fact box of some kind in one of those stories might have lent a different look.
I might have separated stories with a thin horizontal line.
Good use of photos of varying sizes, but they appear very similar -- runners in red singlets. I know it was the state track championship, but was there any variety in shots? Reaction, embracing at the finish line, triumph, that sort of thing?
And what Dickens said about hierarchy...I was always taught that you "steer" your reader through the page. There should be a dominating headline/story that tells the reader "Read me first!"
That's not clear here.
Not trying to be too critical and I'm certainly no expert. But that's my two cents.

 

Thanks. That's solid advice.

The subhead thing is something we've been told to do. They don't really like stories without one, but I may try a fact box, that sounds like a good idea and IMO does the same thing. Our shots didn't have too much variety, so that's why I used the generic "Girl with medal" photo to break things up from the "Girls running around" theme.

On this page, my dominant story was the Boys team finish, which was the story to the top right. Do you think I should have made the headline bigger, and if so, where would you have put it? I'd say headlines are my weakest design point so any help would be nice.

As for the horizontal lines, I tried to break them up as much as possible, (they're 1pt), but my boss doesn't like lines bigger than 2pt, so i'm in a bit of a corner there. Are there any other ways to really break things up without entirely breaking them up? What I mean is, all four of the stories on the front are linked and have things in common so I don't want to completely seperate them.

I guess what i'm asking for is advice on how to "steer" the readers.

Like I said, i am still a noob design-wise. I've been laying out pages for about a year now and this was one of my first real attempts to do something different than what the predecessor had form-wise.

 

Just a bigger headline in a larger font would have accomplished what you want, then. Use the same font you used for BACK ON TOP, but a punchy 2 or three word head in a thick font: EASY FOR EG or YOUNG AVENGERS or something like that, rather than a 2-deck head with an italic subhead, You could acknowledge Ross and Feigen in the subhead perhaps?
So it could be: EASY FOR EG in 60 point say, with Ross, Feigen lead surprise second place finish, in the italic subhead. If necessary, you could pull that single column runner that goes with that story, or perhaps crop your dominant photo a bit. Pinching it in to the runner's hand on the left hand side for instance, would give you a little more depth and drop everything down on the page a bit.
This is all Monday morning quarterbacking of course, and I know I hate that with my own pages. I realize you have to make decisions on the fly and process stuff to make it happen.
That said, hierarchy -- with the story you deem most important quickly identifiable -- and photo selection are important.

 

A couple of things I noticed.
1. Even though I don't like the look, I applaud you for taking chances with your design.
2. you need a little more room to breath on this page. The use of rules helps tremendously, like you did next to the "back on top" package, but you need a little room, like a pica, on either side. Also, try and avoid elements, like the cutline on the centerpiece, from touching the sides of the photos. A pica inset is always cleaner.
3. the puizzle-design you did at the bottom is comfusing. Dos that photo in the lower right go with the avanger story or the nunez story? I think I know this, but the question still pops up.
4. From a design standpoint, I try and blow out the centerpiece, and let everything else get out of the way. Here, it is one big jumble of stories. True enough, the top photo is bigger, but everything seems very cramped, and it's all track, so I'm not sure where to go on this page, as a reader.

Like I said, I applaud the effort on this and your penchant for taking chances. Clean it up a bit with some space and more natural packaging, and you'll have a winner.

 

Thanks for the advice.