Design thread .... v.2

Thanks. All assistance will be appreciated. You see, I'm 24, 15 months out of college and we're trying to keep as many plates spinning as we can. I'd like to do more than just get by on "we've always done it that way." Some day (soon, I hope), I'd like to become good at spinning one plate well.

In fact, in our 2 1/2-man shop, my boss is on vacation and the half can't do layout, so the section is all mine tomorrow (with no help, they keep me to two pages). All I probably need to do is go into photoshop and convert the .pdf to a .jpg? Then do I have to do something to get it to the web?

 

Yes. Either post it to Newspagedesigner, or upload it to a photobucket account.

 

Also, I forgot: Don't ever use a cutout for a live gamer. And yes, I made the mistake once or twice when I first started designing.

 

Yes. So did I. Don't do that. Don't "manipulate" live action in any way.

 

And use text on photos sparingly ... I knew a sports desk that once they were allowed to do it, did it on everything.

 

From Monday and Tuesday (we're a six-day PM).

Be gentle, but thorough.

 

Not bad. It's clean. You don't need overhauling or anything.

That left column is very restricting, leaving you with some very vertical pages. Are grids out of the question? That, to me, would bring the most improvement - short of getting rid of the left column.

Not a big fan of the pulled quote. Is there a box around it?

 

Yeah, when I describe our design style to others, "conservative" is normally the first word I use. The pull quote on the bottom is in a yellow-tinted box, which is kind of hard to tell with the size of the picture.

EDIT: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by grids. The left column is sacred. It's hard to tell, but what we do with it is, the top left is local prep scores, then pro scores, than shorts (mostly the morning AP package) of non-local things or stuff we can't get in.

 

Pretty clean, UP ... only thing I'd say is that the one-column standalone on Tuesday's front is in a very awkward spot. Might have been worth finding another way to skin that cat.

 

I'm extremely confused by the lead headline on Monday's page. Luft's lifts Gold Medal 'A' crown? Huh?

 

The Gold Medal is the name of an amateur basketball tournament in our coverage area. The 'A' is supposed to indicate that this is the Class A division, and Luft's is short for Luft's Advertiser, the name of the team that won.

It's not exactly ideal and it's probably a strike against it that I had to explain it, but it does make more sense to our coverage area, I think.

 

More white space for centerpiece packages, please. Trust me. And some of the spacing for the multiple-deck heds seems excessive.