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Design

As editor-in-chief, I have designed two newspapers. While Volume III Issue I did not change much from the year prior, my advisor and I made drastic changes to Volume III Issue II. After receiving critiques from judges, we wanted to make some changes. As you can see, the first Issue is very colorful. Although it was a fun touch, our newspaper received feedback saying sometimes it was distracting and made captions hard to read. For Issue II, I wanted to keep some color, but make it more subtle: rather than having stories being places in colorful boxes and having colorful titles, we put color in smaller details. Bylines, outlines and page numbers are all color-coded with their sections (news, feature, opinion, etc.). By taking away some of the color aspects, the newspaper is far easier to read.

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Volume III Issue I above

Volume III Issue II below

Click photos to enlarge

Another noticeable change is the layout. The CATalyst Newspaper had a square layout. This was unique, but there were problems with it--space was limited. When my staff would place their stories, there was constantly a need for more space. I even had one writer have to condense her story in half for it to fit. To allow more content and more breathing space, we switched to a 12x17 layout. I loved the look of this and I rarely had to ask people to cut their stories. In my opinion, this was the greatest improvement we made to the newspaper.

Volume III Issue II below

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Volume III Issue I above

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In addition to those major changes, we also made minor changes such as changing fonts. We wanted the paper to be eye-catching, but professional. I think by looking at these two layouts, my growth can be seen. Not only have I had to learn the ins and outs of  InDesign, but I have also learned how to have an eye for what fonts and colors look best together and the importance of white space. Since the beginning, the CATalyst Newspaper has won numerous awards and I believe with this new design, it will continue to do so.

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