Creating design in relation to doing journalism can create some very visually appealing media, so appealing that the piece of journalism can help attract more viewers. This is why creating unique and appealing designs is very essential for all aspects of journalism and I quickly learned this throughout my high school journalism experience. Want to see what I know about designs in journalism? Check out my work below.
Making two-page newsmagazine spreads
Making a newsmagazine spread is an absolute staple for the Amplifier, the newsmagazine publication for our journalism class. I’ve done seven spreads to date, each different in some way through design techniques and different story categories.
Making a newsmagazine spreads takes a long, but quick process. Our staff has about a three to four week period to create a magazine to ship off to Oregon Web Press. Sure, that time can be thought of as lengthy, but there are so many revisions to be had, so many designs to make, and so much more. With that being said, here are some general steps I take to make sure my design is where I want it to be.
- Having an inspiration spread. Creating a functional magazine spread by pure imagination is almost impossible. Having some inspiration by your side helps the process go quicker and less stressful. Not to mention how much easier it is to create a functional and balanced spread.
- Getting visuals. My magazine spreads cannot have just copy. Getting graphics and photos help create a visually appealing spread.
- Having the right amount of copy. I do understand the point of newsmagazines is to spread information. However, I make sure to not have too much copy because too much copy could lead to a boring spread.
- Choosing a visual theme. Whether going for some kind of contrast, symmetry, color or font style, choosing a consistent theme helps create a more functional newsmagazine spread.
- Revisions. Getting constructive criticism on my work is easily the biggest part of the process. By taking in other people’s feedback, I am always able to improve my spread and see things that I didn’t see before due to that new perspective.
With that all in mind, let’s go more in-depth on how exactly I create designs and why it’s important to have an inspiration spread.
Having inspiration
Having an inspiration spread is so essential, that is why I figured to create a more in-depth entry for my experience with inspiration spreads. It’s borderline impossible to create a good newsmagazine spread without having some kind of inspiration. Our Amplifier emphasized using inspiration spreads pretty early, so I got the hang of it pretty quickly.
Let’s look at an example. On the left, I picked an inspiration design for my spread on a few senior athletes signing their national letters of intent at the end of my sophomore year. I chose this soccer inspiration spread because it looked like it had three parts to separate out my content. Since I had three athletes to feature, I thought this was a perfect spread to go off because of those three segments.
This is something I quickly learned when using inspiration spreads. The inspiration spread I pick has to have similar amounts of words and visuals in order to connect the spread I want to create. Putting the theme of a spread to a spread I’m making is so much easier because of that.
However, if I don’t have an inspiration spread, things can go terribly wrong. Sometimes, I tend to flee away into my imagination to create a newsmagazine spread. This is something I often do in photojournalism, and in that aspect of journalism, it’s more of a positive. However with creating designs, staying grounded to my inspiration is what works the best. For example, on the right, I needed to create a spread on a couple new teachers at the beginning of my junior year. The first image shows what I was doing without an inspiration spread and the second image shows what I was able to do with inspiration with my peers. Big difference right? The work speaks for itself; I have to use inspiration for my designs. Like I said, my teacher spread used inspiration from my peers. Infusing other people’s ideas is another adequate use of inspiration because when you have that many brains, I’m able to make a spread that could have been based on an inspiration spread as well. Overall, over time, I’ve learned that design inspiration is essential.
Using layers to create a newsmagazine layout
For my second-to-last newsmagazine spread as a high school journalist, I went for a different kind of style for my visual elements. In the past, I have played with symmetry features (see below) to create my spread but this time I went with layers.
Making this spread taught me how to figure out where to put boxes to create harmony. One of the bigger strategies I used to create harmony was making sure my boxes didn’t fully reach to the length that each picture was at. This strategy helps give the design an intriguing look. Another thing I played with was the headline as the headline is over the image. I did this because I wanted to make sure all of my design were connected, because this is only one person I am featuring so it’s all connected. Overall, layering helps connect a spread together.
Creating symmetry (and a bit of kerning) with a newsmagazine layout
The design for my fourth spread in my senior year is pretty simple. I went with more symmetry because I know this is my comfort spot and I needed to rely on that due to the short turnaround time. The utilization of the green gave continuation with the photos. The Constantania font felt “royal” which felt right with the word “loyal.”
This is a spread I’m very proud on because of the way I executed the design. Like I said, I haven’t been experienced with kerning, but this time, I put more of an emphasis on it. The results show because the headline isn’t weirdly spaced out. Another thing I’m proud of with this spread is the color scheme. The tones of the greens go along well with the pictures and I think this is super important because it goes well with the symmetry of the overall design. Above all else, the symmetry of the big banner, the photos, and the quotes is the thing I’m most proud of. Why? Because it’s very balanced. This is my favorite technique to use because it can be applicable with all things, such as equaling womens and mens lacrosse. Using design features like this can create more layers into my designs. Not to mention how I used the bleed, connecting two different photos together through the bleed is something I don’t really do, but when flipping the pages, it works. Creating symmetry and practicing kerning is something that I feel is essential when creating designs.
Using Adobe Illustrator to create an Infographic
In the middle of my senior year, I tried out Adobe Illustrator. I have tried numerous Adobe products, including InDesign, Lightroom, Photoshop, and Bridge. However, it was time for the winter print cycle so I needed to make a newsmagazine spread and I wanted to try something new. I had a bunch of data for my article so I thought it would be a great idea to make an infographic to make information comprehensible for the reader.
I went into Adobe Illustrator and got to work. I was able to make a solid key in different colors to convey different data. However, the first time I had very similar colors so that I could match it up with my spread. I soon learned that it made it too hard to tell who bars were who’s so I had to change the infographic to have distinct colors. I also learned how much patience it took. I had to make the design super consistent because I didn’t want any silly mistakes taking away from the information. I needed to make my design as clean and comprehensible to the best of my ability.
The infographic happened to fit nice and snug with my spread. I dedicated a big portion of the spread to that infographic because I needed to make sure it was big enough for the readers to see. When dealing with large amounts of data, I always make sure that the reader can read it clearly. In the future, I hope to keep testing out my ability to do infographics because I find it an essential part of displaying data, which is also a huge part of journalism.
Creating a newsmagazine cover
In the 2023 Winter Edition of the Amplifier, I got the opportunity to make the cover story on the nationally ranked basketball team. This is an experience I enjoyed because I learned more on what makes a photo a cover photo, spacing and branding.
I quickly learned to create consistency between the cover story and the cover. Me and Audrey Lippert, the Print Editor-in-Chief at the time, made sure to have the cover story headline the same as the Amplifier title. This is something the Amplifier always does because it creates consistency between the designs. Another thing we aimed to do with covers is to have branding prominently shown. We put the logo in the top right corner, away from the white jerseys, so that it can be properly shown. Additionally, with this issue of the Amplifier, I decided to spice things up with the cover design. I decided to create a background image behind the main image to help create an atmospheric cover. I thought it was successful because the pom-poms and the setting is properly shown. Having this added perspective creates more layers to the cover, which makes sense because this basketball team has multiple layers itself. Designs with these kinds of story-telling aspects, in my opinion, are essential when creating journalistic designs.
Making a Canva infographic
In the middle of my sophomore year, I went on Canva to try out a design for a big game in the NCAA tournament. I quickly learned many essential Canva tools like fading out subjects. I displayed opacity changes with the logos of the team with more prominent things in front of the faded logos. I think this helped create more emphasis with the design for those more standing-out subjects. Another thing I learned with Canva is how I learned to display data through their own features. Using the bar and the circle helped create variety within the infographic, something that can be more enticing for the average viewer to look at. I also learned how consistent color can really make or break a design. I purposely matched the colors between the two teams to make sure each piece of data was prominently connected to either team. Lastly, it’s important that I included a story-telling feature and in this case, it was about the data behind Coach K retiring. However, I tied it in with the rest of the infographic since I only included it within the Coach K-North Carolina relationship. Learning these aspects of Canva helped me learn more about consistency and story-telling.
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