My Inside Page

This is my inside page for The Scoop. The first decision that I made was which stories to use. Being familiar with the different stories generated between the labs, I chose stories that had nice pictures. I like to read articles about local church activities, so I was a little biased in choosing the New Joy story; plus it had a really cute picture of a little girl. I loved the picture because it's close up and she is looking up at the photographer. I think it's cute when children physically look up to adults because of the height difference. One can't help but think "Aww, she's a cute, little thing." So after choosing the photo I cropped it. I zoomed in on her face and cut out the photographer's leg that was originally in the photo. Next I placed the second photo, the thermometer charting the progress of their fundraisers, underneath it and the cutline. Once I placed the photos I moved onto arranging the copy. When I write headlines I tend to forget the verb, so I sat there for a while thinking. I wanted to play on the word "new" and came up with the headline "New Joy plans for a new building." After I was done with the top I put a ruler underneath the article, separating it from the bottom.

The next story I chose was about donation meters downtown. I've never noticed the meters before and figured others might not have either. I thought it was pretty cool that these meters existed to help the homeless. I liked the picture of the meter, but I found another story about the meters. The other picture had more color in it because of the people walking in the background. I liked that picture better because of the color, but I still thought that the first photo was good. Originally, I placed the meter photo on the right side of the page and cropped out the guy's leg. However, my professor pointed out to me that my photos were right-heavy, everything was on the right and I agreed. Since everything was on the right I left myself little room for my headline. I had a hard time coming up with something short and explanatory. Mr. Parks suggested that I move things around so the headline could go across the story and photo. I centered the photo and did a text wrap but then I was left with a big gap of white space. I had to widen my photo, which is why the man's leg is present. Enlarging the photo could have eliminated the human leg but doing that would also cut out the sign. To me it was important that the sign was visible. Ideally, I wanted to include a map of the meters downtown, but I couldn't find one.

I enjoyed creating the layout despite minor frustrations. For some reason it was hard to think. I wanted to do a really creative, out-of-the-box layout but couldn't. I thought that the News-Journal layout was awesome. Instead of just doing a chart it's an actual calendar. I think it helps people to see how President Obama spent his days. That was very inventive. Even though that layout is the front page and mine was the inside page, I wanted to do something cool like that. My layout was very simple. Simple and clean is still good, but I know I could've done better.

I still enjoyed the experience and look forward to making more layouts.