PART 2: Showing the Editors

Today I finished a full mock up of The Daily in its redesigned state. Overall I am pretty pleased with the typeface selection and elements. Of course, there are some big picture things that will have to be fleshed out as the paper moves along in the new format, but I think this is a great start.

I made prints for the editors and unveiled it to them during their daily budget meeting. Their response was very positive and reassuring. Everyone seems to be on board with how things are looking and there shouldn't be too much trouble planning content around the new sections. Part of The Daily's plan for the redesign was to incorporate shorter pieces and more opportunity for blurbs, vinettes and pull-out information.

According to my primary research, readers on campus have limited time to disect information in The Daily's current format. The stories are long and there is very little pull out information that the reader can take and use. The style did have, however, boxes that told the reader important information for upcoming events such as concerts, performances and seminars. Nevertheless, there was not enough information for our campus to use efficiently.

Another element that I am trying to tackle is the use of white space. In the current paper, white space is minimal. The current mentality is to fill every piece of space with content. Naturally, the elements start to blend together and the pages become very cluttered and messy. In order to maintain clarity and space, I've implemented a more rigid column grid. The column grid, along with larger photos and increasing content space will make the content more clear and draw the reader in to the quick-hit information that they wanted the most.

Here are just a few examples of the mock pages I've created with the new design elements. Just to remind you, these are rough mock ups, so there are some pieces missing and some pieces that change from page to page to show the editors their options. Final decisions will be made on many design elements and some type treatments.

(Click any image to see a larger version)

The first thing you might notice on this examples is the increased size of photos and art. If all goes well, this should be a staple of the redesign. We have a talented team of photographers under a great photo editor, Zach Butler, and being able to play their photos larger will make not only everyone at The Daily a little happier but the readers happier too.

Another detail that is new to the redesign is the news headers:

The flag has been cleaned of its garnishes and decoration, leaving only the simple type (something that the flag has not had for a number of semesters). This header piece was modeled off The Kansas City Star and the Orlando Sentinel. I chose this style because our research showed that, again, our readers have limited time to take in information in The Daily, so any quick-hit pieces you give them will be beneficial. This also works for the editors since many of them expressed concern that it might be hard to draw readers into stories inside. So, each section has a piece to refer inside.

With that comes new opportunity for the editors to offer quick information to the reader in each section header:

Here, the opinion editor can use the header space to feature comments from our website. This was particularly important to him because he wanted to bring reader comments into each day's paper as part of an effort to increase participation. In this particular example, the right side is used to put "Comments of the Day." This style is consistent in every section, allowing the editors to put important information right in front of the reader. For instance, for the sports section this space might be used to put a stat of the day or a pull quote from an athlete talking about a game. News briefs or a fast fact can be put in this space for the campus news section, etc.

(Click any image to see a larger version)

Here is a look at the entire Opinion page:


And Sports:

Life & Arts:

Another front page example:

This mock up features a sky box refer for a big news story. In this particular example, I used a photo of quarterback Sam Bradford and a headline treatment to refer a story about spring practices. It was really important to the editors to have a flexible design that allows for large elements to be placed in whenever possible. This example has the large refer on the top as well as the header treatment, showing that more information can be placed above the fold if need be.

There you are - a small look into the redesign process so far. Later this week I will have a meeting with the editors and flesh out concerns and details in the redesign. From there, I will develop a library and paragraph styles for them to use as the final version.

I'll update you after this meeting.

That's it for now.