Design
When I first learned about my high school’s journalism program, it was our print magazine, The Highlander, that lured me in.
I’ve always loved to design. It started with sewing, when my mom signed me up for a class at about the age of eight. Half of my closet still stores racks upon racks of dresses of my design and stitching, many bearing ribbons from the county fair or photos from annual fashion shows. I don’t have time to sew as often anymore, but my crimson Eversewn Sparrow 25 stays plugged in, a black spool and bobbin full and prepped for a fashion emergency or my occasional bursts of inspiration (usually for forgotten Christmas gifts…). Still, my skills come in handy whenever my brother rips his pants or my mom’s drawstring falls out in the wash.
However, sewing wasn’t my only creative outlet. Around the same time, I began drawing and painting, skills that come out during birthdays and other card seasons. Designing these cards also eventually led me to the digital side of design, likely for the lack of paint messiness. Canva was my gateway, and its premade layouts pushed me to join yearbook in seventh grade. By eighth, I was Editor-in-Chief. The role was a perfect fit: as a hardcore and self-overworked perfectionist, I was the best final check, double, triple…quintuple-checking alignments, font sizes, and color matching.
That attention to detail has since then translated seamlessly into magazine spread design. If I spend an hour building a layout, you can bet I’ll spend two more perfecting it. Scroll down to see some of these such layouts and learn about my design thought process!
Features Evergreen Spread
I never expected this to get to be published, as this was the first spread that I created using Adobe InDesign. Based on my first published feature, it was originally four pages, but later condensed to three to fit in the last issue. While designing it, I wanted to use a color that really stood out because the topic of it, swearing, is something that can be very jarring. I also experimented with color overlays and background elements to clearly connect the pages.
Features Practice Spread
While interning for The Highlander, I was tasked with designing a spread using my mentor’s team’s writing and photography, just as she would. Though it remained unpublished, the project challenged me to build a layout around real content rather than designing and then filling the rest in with however much placeholder text I had leftover room for. Because of this, I learned a lot about text wrapping, specifically the importance of leaving enough space for readability. I also got better at fitting everything without overcrowding or too much white space. For example, a large text-wrapped object on the first two pages left limited copy for the second spread, and, at first, I saw it as a hindrance, but then realized it allowed me to highlight the photography more prominently, which I did successfully.
Data Practice Spread
For our last practice assignment as interns, we were asked to incorporate data into a design under the topic of social media use. Immediately, I knew that I wanted to have a cutout and abstract sectioning, and the screen light from a phone was the perfect solution, knowing that many teenagers watch their phones in the dark late at night. I created two overlapping lights (one coming from off the page) that intersected to create lots of contrast against the darker background. This also gave me the perfect section for the data, where I used two different types of visualizations and significantly reduced how many numbers and words there were so that readers can understand at first glance. Furthermore, in this section and the rest of the spread, I repeated the purple of the phone to make it really feel like one cohesive piece, which was especially important with how much the graphs change the tone of the spread.
Othello Practice Spread
This spread was actually created as part of an English assignment after reading Othello by William Shakespeare. The theme behind my design was the uncertainty that both Othello and Emilia feel in their relationships about whether they should be bystanders or speak up, so I tried to emulate the stress that would come with such a decision with a squiggly-like font, similar to the scribbled squiggle you often see in cartoons when showing a character's anxiety. I wrapped this text around the stressed man to make it clear it's his thoughts. With a requirement to use data and explainer boxes, I also got to experiment with sectioning by color blocking in my design.