Design thread

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

Nope, you are just fishing for ways for there to be no criticism.

So, on to the next page:

"Way too much to handle." Says nothing. Should have been rewritten. Where was the editor?

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

It says that the Senators were way too much to handle for the Panthers. then in the lead in, it states that Ottawa outshot florida by a healthy margin.

The idea of the headline is not always to summarize the story, dumbass

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

Very nice page, save for the default about giving hedline writers carpal tunnel with that way too tiny/expansive subhed style.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

BD, I know DP is difficult, but calling him names isn't gonna help matters. It'll just get him all riled up, and it kinda defeats the whole "let's keep this thread civil" ideal we have going here.

That said, I've got no problems with that Sens-Panthers head, especially given the art and the lead in.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

Define "editor".

The copy editor wrote the headline. The slot editor sent it through. That's two "editors" right there.
I'm guessing the assigning editor was at home. And probably the sports editor too.
Maybe the night editor should have changed it?

What is your headline suggestion, DyePack?
It's fine to critique, but you gotta bring something to the table other that hating on something.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

I have been sufficently shamed :-[

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

Even though I'm on record as saying bumping heads don't offend me like they once did, I think in this case it could have been pretty easily avoided.

Swap the Heat and Panthers stories.

Heat goes in the one-column hole.

Panthers goes in the bottom left corner, with the art separating the Panthers and Marlins stories. Probably would have needed an extra couple of lines on the cutline to get enough depth, but a four-line cutline for a photo that narrow is no big deal, and the cutline writer probably would have appreciated it.***

*** Designers sometimes have a bad habit of scrimping on the cutline to make a photo fit their layout. Oftentimes a 1-line cutline should be 2, and a 2 should be 3, etc. And the cutline writer will get ripped the next day for writing a crappy cutline. Many times a whole line is wasted just with the catchy lead-in (many papers use them) and a cutline that reads "Getty Images photo/Alexander Schwarzeneggar"

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

I would love to work at a paper that has separate headline writers, cutline writers, designers, copy editors, slot editors, assigning editors, writers, etc.

I think some of you at the bigger papers forget that a designer like me has to write his own cutlines after finding his own photos, tone them, load them into the system, put them on the page, write my own heds, etc.

then the assigning/slot/copy (all in one) working that night looks them over and approves the page.

I know it sounds like bitching, but please remember that when cutlines are just one or two deck, it's because we don't have the time to do the necessary research, sometimes, to fill out the cutline like it should be.

After all, i don't work for Charlotte, or Fort Worth or Cincinnati or Cleveland or Washington

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

I hope that wasn't what you read into my post.

If a designer/cutline writer (no matter how busy) only  wants 1 or 2 lines, that's fine. In fact, it oftentimes works best when the same person designing a page handles copy on it. That way give-and-take adjustments are a little easier to make. You just make them. Don't need to ask.

But sometimes at bigger papers --- because a play in a photo has some significance that needs to be explained or there may be 3 people in the photo that need to be identified --- a cutline writer really needs a little room. Not for "research", but simply to ID everyone and to tell the readers that this particular fumble set up the winning field goal (or whatever the significance was).

And sometimes designers don't take that into account.  And they sometimes bristle when the cutline writer asks them for an extra line . . . after they have already sent their color to platemaking.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

Which is another problem that we don't talk about in our industry... the need to save money by pushing our deadlines back to get the trucks off the dock faster, therefore necessitating the need for better page flow (which isn't always a bad thing), forcing us to send colors at 10 p.m. instead of even 10:30 or 11, locking us in, because platemaking has already made the $4.50 plates and the company doesn't want us to redo those plates, etc., etc.,

As I have told others on here, my rant was more at the industry and not at anyone specific.

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

Offer a solution, DyePack. That's what she's asking for. That head went through at least TWO 'editors' before that page was done. How would you have done it differently?

 

Re: Design thread *Updated 12/13*

I say again: I cannot read that story at the size it is now. Writing a headline without reading the story happens far too often. I don't do it.

Until someone provides the text, I say again: Where was the editor? That headline should have been rejected and rewritten.