Design
Us Magazine Fall 2019
For the second edition of Us Magazine, a special edition of the Red & Black, I drew inspiration from Andy Warhol. Specifically, the design and colors used in this magazine were inspired by the piece entitled "Shot Marilyns." When planning the overall design of this magazine I wanted to have consistent thematic elements that reflected the issue's content, which was entirely profiles. I chose Warhol's work because he studied individuals and objects that reflected the time period and, ultimately, this was a reflection of what our campus looked like in 2019. I incorporated elements of pop art throughout the entirety of the issue. The cover and table of contents on page 2 were done in the style of Warhol's work through color layering over portraits of students. Additionally, I layered shapes on top of each other for all of the secondary content and the staff box to echo the 3-dimensional impressions that Warhol's work gave.
See the cover, pages 2-3 and 18-19 here.
September 2019 - page 12
Initially, this page was the responsibility of someone on staff. However, because journalism is an ever-changing landscape, I needed to step up to the plate to help get this done so we could meet our print deadline. I had four hand-drawn portraits with mini profiles to work with, so I decided to make the student artwork the centerpiece. This was one of my favorite pages to design because it just came quickly. Sometimes, I spend a long time hunched over my laptop agonizing over where to put content on a page but luckily enough with this design, once I placed the art the rest just followed.
View page 12 here.
August 2019 - centerspread
This year, I wanted to push the staff to localize more hard news. I think that student publications have a responsibility to cover not just their campuses, but how global events impact the lives of the people at their schools and communities. The design of this centerspread was about breaking the issue of immigration down into easy to swallow parts. We broke down Trump's executive order and I created sidebars that informed students of their rights and provided context to why this issue is important for high schoolers, too. I created different sections of the page so that our readers could familiarize themselves with the national issue before delving into a profile of a student immigrant that represented the implications of national immigration policy on our campus.
See pages 8-9 here.
October 2018 - centerspread
This page design was ultimately about designing data. I distributed a survey to all eligible student voters on our campus. Then, I used their responses to determine what needed to be covered to localize the elections to our campus. Again, this was about breaking a seemingly overwhelming amount of news into easily readable content. I used sidebars around the main story to give readers multiple entry points into the page. This also catered to those students who just don't want to read a full article. Design, just as much as content, is about making the news accessible to your readers.
See pages 8-9 here.
March 2020 - cover
It was 11:06 a.m. We were sending the paper to print at 4 and naturally, the cover was blank. In all honesty there was a different plan for this, We were going to throw basketball on the cover. They had just ended a historic season and it was a big deal. But as it turns out, coronavirus was a bigger one. The coverage that went with this cover was still unfinished when I made this. I was working with two pieces of information: the coronavirus was going to disrupt our day-to-day and Hillsborough County Public Schools didn't know what to do about it. It's hard to make a virus pretty or eye-catching, but I thought it needed to be. It needed to be something that people would see and say "Hey, maybe I should read that," because it was important for students to know about. That's why I chose to make it loud, bright. If I could have, I probably would have added flashing lights.