Design
While I don’t have the same experience with newsmagazine layouts as many of my fellow editors do, I’ve learned a lot about digital and website design over the years. Some of this is very similar to what those around me do, utilizing tools like Canva to make graphics and arrange story elements on a page, but some of it has also involved teaching myself quite a bit about coding and utilizing WordPress. I’ve become a lot more adept over the years in what truly makes a digital design accessible and engaging to readers.
Learning about design
One of our assignments over the summer was to watch tutorials on how to use InDesign and other Adobe Suite platforms and apply them by doing a mock design, the notes from which can be seen on the top. I got permission from my adviser to do a layout on a more web-friendly platform called Figma, which a lot of the things I learned about InDesign applied to, shown on the bottom left. While I was unsuccessful in figuring out how to make Figma compatible with WordPress, this mockup was still incredibly helpful in guiding my coding of the final design, shown on the bottom right.
Working with others
While a lot of my designing happens after the final draft stage, I try to bring the writer in when I can. This often includes a pencil and paper, where I draw out what I want the final product of the package to look like. I’ve found that this not only gives me a roadmap to follow when coding, but more autonomy for them as they create multimedia or gather the necessary elements for it. The photos show how I did this for Digital Feature Writer Abby Holloway’s story “Inkspired,” where we planned out the multimedia and what sections it would go in together.
Digital exclusive design
While the digital exclusive designs I’ve made don’t have a different look or brand than ones based on the newsmagazine, I am often working from scratch, which requires more planning, but also means I have more freedom and often intention from the beginning to make it look a certain way.
Election Reactions
Designing this package was a bit of a challenge for me. It was my first time fully utilizing code in WordPress, no Visual mode or Canva to help me (other than for the main visual). I experimented a lot with white space, which I felt helped to accentuate the package’s quotes. Utilizing the mix of photos, parallaxes, soundcites and standalone quotes, I did my best to establish a flow with the semblance of pattern between the different media types, particularly in the absence of a cohesive story to do that.
Inkspired: tattooing in Athens
This is one of my favorite packages to date. While I followed a similar formula to many of the others I’ve designed, I made small, intentional changes to emphasize the true essence of the story, namely the art and people. I decided to use a different font than I usually do, one that more closely resembles ink, and even using Canva graphics to add ink splotches to the section headers. I also kept the interfaces of the timeline and map, places where I would normally bring in color, in black and white to let the photographs and gallery of artwork shine through.
Behind the buzz
When packaging this news story about caffeine, I was very color-focused since the packaging of most caffeinated drinks are very vibrant and eye-catching. I kept the elements of the main graphic minimal and monochromatic to let the colors of the photo shine through. I took a similar approach to multimedia, color-matching the infographic to the can of Celsius in the photo and using an array of colors for the bar graph. This made the packaging both engaging and cohesive.
Cross-platform design
Whenever I’m repackaging stories from the newsmagazine, I make a concerted effort to have the design of my package be somewhat different from that of the print layout. However, I often take inspiration from the original layout in the process.
Under the gun
In lieu of photos, Graphic Designer Kimberly Sanabria-Amaya had done several illustrations for the print layout of this story, so I already had a good basis of visuals going in. In planning, I started with these visuals, experimenting on paper with how I wanted to disperse them throughout the story, using the print layout as inspiration. As I went on to design the section headers and multimedia, I focused on dark colors and a bold font to get the impact of the information across. I did the same for the main visual, using a combination of Adobe Express and code to animate the bullets in for further emphasis.
Nailed It
For this story, a Q&A with a local business owner, I used Canva to bring in similar elements of color that the print design had. I focused on vibrancy, bringing in the most engaging photos and using graphics, that while simple, helped add even more color. Looking back, however, I wish I had emphasized the photos even more, possibly with an in-story photo gallery or parallax rather than the smaller and somewhat less engaging vessels I utilized.
Good Day at Good Dirt
The print layout of this story was very visuals focused. I wanted to do something to the effect of putting all the visuals on one page but while still breaking up the text, something I have found to be vital in web design. Using a mix of the features built into WordPress and my own coding, I was able to figure out how to overlay some of the text on one of the more compelling photos. I didn’t want the text to fully cover the photo though, so I animated it to have the image move with the text, still allowing full view of both but also painting a picture for the reader as they went.