Today's session about the fundamentals of newspaper design is one of the sessions for which I absolutely had to attend the institute! I had pretty much no knowledge at all of anything concerning design coming in here, and after today's session, I have more than I could have hoped for. I always just thought about page layout when I thought about design, but Tracy's presentation expanded my definition to include typography and other visual elements that I'd never really thought of before. My design vocabulary is also much larger now than it was seven hours ago, and being able to see Tracy's examples of not so great uses of typography were especially helpful for me. Since I'd never really thought of typography as a design element before, I needed to see the ways in which my students and I should not be using it, in addition to good uses of it.
I think I have a much better understanding of design now, and I've learned many great resources I can check out to see more examples. I'm looking forward to having a much better-looking newspaper next year!
In the photo, Tracy Collins demonstrates his redesign of a newspaper page.
Bridget Freiler
Pottsville Area High School
Pottsville, Pa.
I too really like the expanded vocabulary, especially because it is likely to translate into knowing what all those fancy tools in InDesign DO. My InDesign coach told me a lot of this, but it just went right over my head. Now I feel that I have a framework for it, and I might even be able to talk about it with my students.
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