Portfolio: Back to School Designs

Uploaded my lastest designs, this time they're of the Back to School publication. It's a newspaper insert to several Maryland newspapers in association with Maryland Family which is produced by the same company and department as where I work, Patuxent Publishing. There were several original illustrations created as well as stock and submitted photos. The final designs were done in InDesign CS.

Cover to back to school

Original illustrations I did for Back to School

What your daily newspaper can teach you about design

While everyone feels the newspaper industry is dying, we can still learn a lot from the way they are designed. Part of my duties as a designer is layout out newspaper. I've learned a lot that has helped me with other projects ever since I've started on that. So maybe these tips will help you just a little bit.

Newspapers love bold headlines. A lot of "bad" designs are cluttered. There's too much going on. There isn't any emphasis or too many things are emphasized. The idea of a headline, subhead and body copy can extend to many forms of design. Try keeping the body copy consistent in size and type style. The headline might even be in the same font. A headline is an opportunity to use a second font, but ask yourself why you think this is appropriate and be critical of the results.

Photos and captions. Newspapers often have to deal with a variety of shapes of photos and fit them into various spaces. In the past few months that I've been doing a few days of newspaper layouts each week, the more I see that the layout is a puzzle. Everything has to fit just perfectly. It's more challenging than it may at first appear. On top of that, you don't want the captions don't want to get mixed in with the body copy. Using a rule, box or just enough white space can separate the caption text from body text Keeping photos near their headlines/copy is one tip. Another is to give a lot of space around them. This can work for all kinds of design objects in your layout.

There's a lot more that you might learn from newspaper design. Look at some strongly branded and well thought out newspapers. Ask what works and what doesn't