The Grady Requirement, blog edition

When sitting down to start designing my front page, the first thing I tried to do was outline how I wanted the page to look. With the help of browsing some front pages from Newseum, I decided where I thought graphics and stories should go. Then I looked at the Red and Black and the Athens Banner Herald front pages to get more of an idea what local newspapers feature.

The first thing I did on InDesign was design my masthead. I wanted it to look professional, so I took a more traditional approach. Looking back and seeing everyone else’s mastheads, I wish I had been a little more creative. One thing Dr. Parks pointed out in lecture is that we were afraid of “big.” I think that was my problem with my masthead; I was afraid to make it too overbearing and settled for a weaker one. I added the unique lines around it so it would give it some kind of memorable trademark.

Next I sorted through the budget line to see which articles I thought would be best for the front page. I considered what content would get the most attention, graphics, and what I thought really represented the whole paper. I wanted the streaking story to be my biggest feature on the front page, but one of my main concerns was that the graphics were in black-and-white. That is why I ended up adding the blue color to my masthead and it ended up becoming a color scheme throughout the page. This issue also led me to choose the Eco-reach story because it had a really nice, bright photo.

Overall, I like my front page. Looking back, I would have liked to eliminate some of the text and make photos larger, but it is easy to read and I think I chose good stories for the front page. Through working on this project, I became much more comfortable with InDesign. Additionally, it was a good experience because I am less intimidated now to design a front page or any newspaper pages because I have done it before.