Design thread

I'm not such a fan of this one. I think it's an experiment that failed.

 

Agreed. You have two wide colums on the top left story, then two narrow columns directly below it. Also not much of a fan of the color screen or the vertical headline. And I never like cutouts of live gamers.

 

One more. Wish more people would look at this thread.

Anyway, this one is kinda similar to the first one I posted, with the Illinois-Missouri Braggin' Rights game. Still, I like this page.

 

The CP works well, although the "ALWAYS" should be a little more narrow. I don't like when words bleed into color; ditto on the cutline -- maybe move the color screen down to the start of the main head, that way you don't have the cutline going across color, then grey, then color again. As for the bottom story, the hed is way too big and you used it as a hammerhed, which should never go on the bottom of the page, IMO. Also, you should consider a sidesaddle cut for photos like that.

 

I know this is a design thread, but the two headlines on the right side of the page - for the Blues and Bears stories - are pretty lame. Not sure if those are yours or not Rusty, but surely something better could have been though up.

As far as the design, and I am not good at it, but was the word "always" as hard to read on newspaper print as it is on-line? I can barely see it, so I was thinking maybe making it a different color than white.

 

Here's my front from tonight. I'm a little pissed the color screens didn't transfer over on my graphic and refer box in the right column.

 

Solid if unspectacular. I generally try to avoid placing a cutline over a photo, but I don't see anywhere else you could have put it. I just hope the registration at your paper is good, or it may be hard to read. But I'm sure you knew whether or not that would work when you put it there.

 

...

 

I wonder if your stalker will have something to say about that one, Ellis.

 

I'm sorry. The voices in my head say I can't talk to you anymore.

 

I think this one has potential. If you put the stacked stories on the left, BLOWOUTS down the middle and the package its with on the right the eye would follow it better. I've never been a fan of shaded packages, so I'm not help on that.

 

I'm not going to argue whether the centerpiece worked or not, my only thing is something I preach to my young designers ...

You went to the trouble of the cutout (that you probably didn't need) in the bottom right-hand corner, you worked so hard on the centerpiece, yet that "Friday night highlights" box is, I'm sorry, a piece of you-know-what.

Black box, yellow letters. Could it look any more ugly?

Please don't take this the wrong way. God knows you're trying hard, and you've got the creative eye, but just don't overlook making the small things (that you will probably use over and over) good. I was always taught build pages from above the fold, from left to right -- it's how people read.

That box just killed me.

But ... you're solid and you know what you're doing. At the rate this business is going, you'll make very good money one day. Good designers are a helluva lot harder to find than good writers. Trust me, I just got finished hiring.