Looking back at the front page I designed, there are a number of mistakes that immediately jump out. The first thing I noticed was that the masthead is a rather dull. It's good that I tried to put some teasers up there, but some of the letters disappear into the images. The masthead could have been bigger and I would have liked to see some color on the top of the page. I noticed after looking through the rest of the classes' front pages that a lot of people used the left side of the page for refers to articles on the inside. Although a generally like the layout of the page, some refers would have been practical and given the paper a more modern look.
Also, the left side of the page looks a little gray. I could main story about bicycling could have used a pull quote and that would have helped solve the problem. I was rather disappointed by the fonts I chose. I would have rather used something a little more bold, or just larger. I think the masthead and headline fonts could be the main reason that the page looks bland.



Editors can't give all negative feedback. So, I would like to give myself some credit. The centered image is well-placed and serves as a good focal point. It's easy to tell that the picture is part of the story directly below it. The grouping of the two stories related to mental health was fairly well done, despite the headline “Stories raise awareness” seems irrelevant to the story. As I mentioned earlier, I do like the overall layout of the page. I was able to fit five stories without it looking too cluttered. Maybe one more picture and a couple pull quotes so that the page doesn't look so gray, and the page would be really well balanced.



It's clear from my inside page that my skills with InDesign improved over the last couple of labs. The page looks significantly better visually than my front page (though this could be a result of the editors choosing the fonts). Structurally it is somewhat boring, with one story sitting on top of the other. But, I like that the top story uses four wide columns while the second uses only three narrow columns. That design kept a page with only two articles perceptually more interesting. The pull quote I used does a fair job of summarizing the article in one phrase, and it keeps the page from looking gray like the front page. I initially had the image of Mark Fox on the left side and remembered it makes more sense to have him looking towards the article. The ad I placed on the bottom of the page is sort of large and tacky, but I filled the ad space with what I could find. Besides, that is a different department anyway. Overall I was more impressed with the inside page even though it only had two stories. I think it is pretty evident that I became more and more familiar with the software as time went on and if I had to make another page, it would look considerably better.