Reaching for the next level

Tips to help you get your design moving forward

By Bryan Redding, Graphics Editor of the Daily Local News in West Chester, PA

1. LOOK LOOK LOOK! Design ideas are everywhere, even the most odd places for the most unlikely stories. I have found design ideas on road signs, drink bottles, magazine ads messy bookshelves etc. Sometimes noticing one little detail in something can dovetail into a design solution somewhere down the road. I sometimes even keep a journal of things that strike me so that they stick with me and I can go back to them later.

1. a. Look at papers, big and small, good and bad to figure out what you can do, what they did that worked and what didn't. I reverse engineer a lot of stuff to figure out how I would do and how they did it.

2. STEAL STEAL STEAL!. Go through the best designed books, newspagedesigner.com etc. for ideas that you can copy or mimick. Especially for topics that run in every paper and could use a fresh look, sure the idea has been done, but chances are the readers in your small east coast town haven't seen the latest design work from San Fran. And at small papers with limited staffs that put out special tabs and sections that only add to a work load, it can provide a quick idea and save time while giving the section a fresh look. Be sure to add your local twist to the idea.

3. REDO REDO REDO! Lots (OK, most) of my good pages aren't the result of one go at it. Just like good writers write a draft, then rewrites and then an editor edits, I design a page, and then redesign it, sometimes changing the whole concept or layout. Sometimes the first one works best, sometimes the fifth one works best.

4. PUSH PUSH PUSH! Every page isn't gonna be awe inspiring, nor grand, nor award winning. Perhaps the hardest part of looking through the books is thinking that those designers put out A quality work every night. They can't. But you still have to try to that every night. If not award winning, then as perfect as is possible given the material. And don't be afraid, especially starting out and at smaller papers, to try stuff. Sure, the next day you might think: What was I doing? But the readers memory is as short as one day and you get another chance at doing it right the next day (assuming the mistake isn't TOO big).

5. DON'T OVER DESIGN! A lot of times when I feel I'm on a roll with a page, I take a step back and take away one effect or trick or what have you. Especially earlier in my career, as I was just learning to use my tools, I found that I wanted to use all my new tricks at once. Take a deep breath, you can do tricks like cutouts, drop shadows, inner glows, embosses and collages at different times on different pages, they don't all need to be done on one single high school ball player for a run of the mill Sports front. The page will look the best if its CLEAN AND SIMPLE. While cool effects and surprises are nice, the page has to be useful to the reader, and a bunch of tricks mashed into one often is just cluttered. Also, keep in mind that your special effects should be used on special pages or topics, not just run of the mill players, pages or stories. No use wasting a cool graphic or concept on a story that doesn't deserve it, why not save it for something that calls for a cool idea.