Design
When I first joined the ODYSSEY, I was purely a writer, but I found a strong interest in design, because of the freedom and control it gave me over how stories were consumed and engaged with. As the News Editor, I did the design for the news section of our news-magazine, working hard to avoid the more boring designs News often had, and make the section pop this year. On the web, as the Digital Managing Editor, with everything I post, I make the layout as engaging to the eye as possible, to capture the reader as best as I can.
Dean's direction design
This was my first ever design for the newsmagazine. On the first two pages, I allowed the visual to have the spotlight, and used white space to make the single column of text stand out, which I think struck a nice balance and stopped the visual from being overly dominant. The second spread was a lot harder until I decided to focus on the design element of hexagons to make the pictures stand out and give it a cohesive theme and made it less overwhelming to the eye.
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Awards:
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SIPA Newsmagazine Feature Package contest First Place
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GSPA Double Truck Layout/Design Superior
The digital divide design
With this design, I had to make a less than 1,000 word story fit four pages. I first tried relying heavily on white space, but with the couple illustrations I had and low word count, it just felt too empty. I still love how the white space looks in the design, but I added square outlines into the design, which helped to fill the blank space and make the elements I had feel stronger.
Awards:
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GSPA Double Truck Layout/Design Superior
East Clayton Street Improvement Project design
With this design, I wanted to find a way to incorporate some graphics of the plans for the renovations, and so acquired a copy of the plans from the city. I didn't want the story to just be a basic two-page spread, so I tried to mix around the placing of the photos and the text. I also had a lot of fun with the "E. Clayton St." sign in the headline, which I took out of a picture and touched up with Adobe Photoshop.
Carrying the community design
This story was very information heavy and very dense, and so we had to find a way to make it engaging visually, and to convey as much information as possible through the design. I collaborated on this design with our 2020-21 Editor-In-Chief, Naomi Hendershot, and we spent a while looking at other newsmagazines and other designs to brainstorm for how to approach the design.
Describe your image
Stepping up to the stage design
This profile had some really great photos, so I wanted to do them justice with my packaging. I had to figure out some complicated coding in order to make the pictures large, and move when you scroll, but I am really proud of how it turned out. Click here to view the story on the web.
Community through creation
This package has a lot of different visuals and voices, which I tried to highlight through the package. Because it was about a crafting community, there were a lot of colorful visuals, which I tried to keep cohesive and display in a visually appealing way. Click here to view the story on the web.
Separate worlds infographic
For my story “Separate worlds,” I created an infographic for the web to complement my story and explain what self-segregation, the core issue of the story, was, as well as provide a quick overview of the information contained in the article.
Learning design
In addition to a design unit in my Journalism 1 class, I have attended several design sessions at GSPA, SIPA, and NSPA. At SIPA, I attended a four hour long pre-conference sessions about design, and recently at NSPA attended several about how to make your designs stand out. Here I have my notes from NSPA.