Redesign Critique

[Alyssa Mitchell]

As those of you who responded to my last discussion wrote, and I agree, the skyboxes at my college paper are terrible. Well, now I'm officially on layout, and I threw them out. What do you think? And please be brutally honest. The first is the original and the second is my redo.

[Mark Coughlan]

It's definitely an improvement.

I think the sidebar on the left still doesnt stand out enough. It blends with the two stories below the fold. Might want to put a contrasting background colour to the green on the main story in behind it. I'd also suggest spliting that sidebar into separate boxes...

Ah here, it would be quicker to draw it up quickly on quark on upload the basic thing.

I'll be back in 10 mins...

[Mark Coughlan]

May suggestions.


Separate the boxes on the left side bar, and story splitting lines between each, and place a background on the picture for the third story so It doesnt look like the caption is the opening paragraph of the copy.

[James A. Molnar]

Alyssa,
I'm not sure if you have been designing for a while or not, but it looks like the page, in general is too cluttered. There is no room for the design to breathe; stories are too crammed together. Where I work, at the Marquette Tribune, a pica (at least) separates all stories. For some good design tips, try checking out The BG News. It's a daily in Ohio, but it has a comparable page size.
Let me know if you need any more help.
-James

[Shawn Alain]

That football photo in the top right could be zoomed in a little tighter.

[Paul Wallen]

Here are a couple thoughts:
The most important thing is to figure out the mission of your promos. For example, do you want them to drive customers to pick up the paper on impulse when they see it on display? Or do you simply want to provide a menu of what's inside the paper once readers have it in their hands? The answer should drive a lot of your decisions on the scale, placement and content of your promos.
Also, my personal feeling is that the the words are way, way more important than the visuals with skyboxes, promos, refers, etc. They shouldn't look visually dense or so boring you look past them. But it's the VERBAL HOOK that is going to drive impulse readers or catch someone's interest to go inside the paper. Remember that this is essentially sales copy for editorial content, and they have to be written to entice. Put most of your energy into that and your promos will be more effective regardless of the visuals that accompany them.