Design
Our publication has one print edition every year, which we start preparing for in late March to distribute at graduation. When we get to this time of year, the entire newsroom switches focus to figure out how to encapsulate our year in print. But as a first-year journalism student, the technicalities of Lightroom, InDesign, and countless other platforms came as an adjustment. But once I had mastered the basics, I realized how enjoyable formatting could be. I found my perfectionism to be incredibly helpful in picking out minor differences between text and or borders. Design showed me the importance of presentation in journalism, as well as forcing me to find new ways of looking at problems.
These are two of six pages I’ve worked on over the years, the right being the back cover to our 2023 edition. I always try to prioritize photos as I found they’re what make spreads more appealing. However, sometimes it can be a struggle to find the balance between making your text align and adding large images. I was proud of these pieces for maintaining this balance.
What started out as an inquiry from our school’s theater department turned into an investigative project. They wanted to purchase a page within the senior print edition to showcase graduating actors, but had a very particular vision. I spent a good deal of the month reaching out to the theater department to gather names of seniors, verify spelling, and the season’s play list. While it looks simple, it built my patience for meticulous formatting and sizing.
This was my most recent spread from last year's senior edition, which was used as the cover for the paper. There was a lot of debate over how we wanted to format the front page, as our school had 10 retirees and we didn't want to show favoritism. So instead of banishing them from the cover all together, our photos editor Katie took a photo of all of the retirees together, and I worked on formatting the page with an extended caption instead. I really like how it came out and feel it covered all of the key stories from the year.
While I work on my own pages, as an editor I am also constantly editing all pages. When I've finished up my own spread, I often will spend 15-20 minutes each class marking up formatting, spelling, or other mistakes. With one set of eyes looking at every page, I find it helps to keep consistency across the design of the entire paper.
Social Media & Other
While print is our primary outlet of design, social media posts have allowed me to be more expressive with color and patterns. Here are a few examples of posts and other designs I've made for the Ghostwriter.
