Embedded Files
The purpose of design is not to just make a spread look pretty but to engage the reader with the story. It is a conduit of communication, drawing the reader in and directing them on the spread. Through three years of trial and error, I have begun to find my footing in the design world.
PRINT MAGAZINE
For every spread I design, I keep track of two things:
Flow: I follow the flow of the readers' eyes, where they will look first and how to keep them engaged with the spread. Thus brings upon us the importance of dominant elements and following the dollar bill rule
Theme: Every spread must align with the story. No spread should be able to make sense with a story on a different topic, as it should be tied in so effortlessly to the story itself
Birds of a feather
This was the first time I worked on a cover story entirely by myself. It was a big undertaking, working under deadlines to gather enough information for three spreads, and then still interview, draft and design for all three. On top of that, this was for our annual photo issue, which we do every December/January print cycle. Every story consists of just photos and captions, yet must still tell a story from start to finish. My initial expectation when I heard this concept in freshman year was that it would make this the easiest issue. Now, as a senior, I recognize that it is the hardest.
This year, our theme was "lyrics," with the headline of each story being that of a popular song.
The cover story was "birds of a feather," from the song of the same title by Billie Eilish. The first most obvious idea is to have the spreads be bird themed. To avoid having the birds floating with no anchor, I added branches. The captions and subhead were text wrapped to fit within the branches.
This was initally meant to be the third spread, not the second. It got moved up because I feared readers would not understand the reference, "we should stick together"—the second lyric in the same song by Eilish—had this spread come after the spread about birds.
In the final spread of this story, I showed the way Jefferson students use art and photography to capture birds in unique ways. Because a full story must be told using just photos and captions, the captions are longer, and fit within the biggest branch.
Full capacity
The back of someone's head is in focus, with the crowded hallway out of focus behind them. I wanted the cover to represent that despite the increasing population size at Jefferson, we were still focused on individual stories and experiences.
Simultaneously, the rips along the corners match the rips that the story spreads contain.
The goal of the divider was to make it claustrophobic and represent the feeling of being a student at Jefferson with the larger population size. The individual is in focus and the background out of focus, as previously in the cover of the magazine, to represent a focus on the individual within the crowd.
Additionally, while the boy is walking off the page, which is typically not recommended for spreads, he is walking into the rest of the package, and the two spreads to come for the story. The reader's eyes would first go to "full capacity," then to him, then want to flilp the page.
Similarly, the girls in the photo on the left page are looking into the spread, directing the reader to the drop cap "T" and the beginning of the article.
The graph visually and numerically shows that population growth at Jefferson for the past few years, effectively getting the message across stronger than it would have as a block of text.
Here, the girl and the teacher are both looking down, to the beginning of the third spread of cover story. The teacher's finger even points toward the text. Because no people or directions are point off the page to the right, the reader will recognize that it is the end of the cover story.
Throughout the whole story, rips remain a theme. I hoped to push forth the idea that the surface, the top page, was the basic ideas everyone had about admission changes at Jefferson, and the article rips it up, searching deeper for what is going on beneath the surface. The story covers how some teachers no longer have their own rooms because of there being too many students, and the underlying effects that has—on both the teacher and the student.
Inside of Integrity
In this illustration, hands reach out of cell phones to fill out a scantron together, demonstrating how with commonplace cheating, every individual's score is a representation of multiple people's work, not noe person.
Additionally, the phone on the bottom left states Physics 1 HN, which is the course where the most students were caught cheating, to the point of affecting how their final exams were scored.
The letters for the answers spells out the word, "cheater."
I chose sticky notes as a main theme for this story because it is often what people use to write their to-do lists. Throughout my reporting, my co-writer, Keertana, and I came to the conclusion that the cheating was a result of overstimulated stress, from parents, students and college admissions.
The sticky notes cover the girl's face because she's weighed down by them, to the point of her expectations for herself overcoming her own appreciation for her identity.
The infographic visually shows data that we gathered from an anonymous form online, and acts as the dominant image in this spread. A topic such as cheating makes finding key visuals difficult, so we brought the sticky notes back into this spread, as well.
While I am normally adamately against staging photos, this was a situation where I made an exception. It would be quite difficult to take a picture of a person actually cheating on a test. To remain honest and accurate with our readers, the photo credit reads "STAGED PHOTO//" to acknowledge this.
Bravo!
This was my first time designing a spread for photo issue, and our theme was interjections. My spread was specifically "bravo!" which we decided would fit perfectly with a story on theater.
Here, the divide between the white and black represent the divide between being "behind the curtain" and "in the spotlight." The photos correspond, with the left two telling the story of the individuals running the performance from behind the scenes and the two on the right telling the story of the actors front and center.
Sound Cue
The theme of this photo issue was senses, and I was assigned sound.
Because of the inherently calm nature of an orchestra, it was difficult to get photos that looked different and unique from one another. I ended up relying on color and framing to show different perspectives.
If I were designing this spread today, I would find pictures for the bottom left where the people are facing inwards to the spread, not out of it.
tl;dr facebook is dying
This story was about the gradual shift from Facebook to Instagram we saw in the student population at Jefferson. To create the post in the top left corner, which is the lede of this article, I individual screenshots of the logo and structure.
The QR code at the bottom of the page was an experiment we were trying to determine whether readers would be interested in longer articles that are available online. I got the idea from newspapers, where oftentimes the beginning of the article will be on the front page, and continued later on. In this scenario, the beginning of the article was on the spread and the rest of the article was online.
History of Horror
The timeline stretches across the page, highlighting, as the headline suggests, the history of the genre horror.
This was a unique style of spread that we hadn't done before, where there was no full length article, but rather the timeline serving as the story.
What I've Learned
The The back cover of every spread features a student, teacher or administrator at Jefferson who discusses what they have learned, as is the headline, from their time at this school. The story is entirely made up of quotes by the featured individual, with no transitions or additions from the reporter.
(Left) This was the first time siblings were featured for WIL, and I wanted to separate their story to be what the two have learned from each other. Since this was the back cover of the October 2024 issue, which featured "Full Capacity," I brought the rips back into play, using that theme to separate the two siblings. Then, I used color to distinguish between which quotes came from Jocelyn and which quotes came from Landon.
(Right) This was the back cover of the political issue, which featured stories with different angles somewhat relating to politics and students at Jefferson. As such, Granchi's quotes are about what she learned from attending both Democrat and Republican speeches and how she brought those skills to her debating.
YEARBOOK
Designing for yearbook spreads is very different than designing for a news magazine, though somewhat still similar. While there is no full-length article to fit on the spread, working on this spread reminded me of designing for photo issue, where full stories—beginning, middle, end—must be told, but you are give just photos and captions to do it.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Before:
After:
The change in font fits the energy of the series "Faces of TJ" better than the previous, more dramatic font. The icons from before were not completely removed, just adjusted to fit the themes of the post better and not feel like it's floating. In Elgamri's post, the music notes are grounded somewhat by the blue wall. In Hyde's post, the two doodles are floating.
Before:
After:
The addition of color—both on the front page and throughout the rest of the stories listed in the carousel—draws the viewer in more than the plain white background (in this example, it was yellow to match October and fall themes, whereas for the Homecoming post just a few days prior was bright pink to match the energy of that week). Additionally, the post on the left was too wordy with no dominant element. Cutting the date made room for the headline, "What's New?" to be larger and grab the viewer's attention
The overall likes, comments and interactions comparatively for both examples of "What's next?" and "Faces of TJ" show that the new designs are effectively bringing in a larger audience.
WEBSITE
I removed the "Diversity" and "Mental Health" categories from the top of the website. While it is a seemingly small change, the front page of the website is the very first thing any reader views when they type tjtoday.org into their browser. If they were to click on either of the two categories, and see that the last recent update was from over four years ago, it would appear that our website is not updated daily, which it is.
For more on the design of actual stories on the online website, I direct you to "Web & Social Media." specifically the section titled "Article Packages."
The choices of how to display certain images and where to display them online do the same thing it does for print. Design directs the reader and shows them what to read next and, to some degree, how to feel about the article.
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