Back to School — 2011

Here are some of the pages for the Back to School special issue I did for The Eagle. It was my first time doing a cover like this for The Eagle. The editor had liked what I did last time for this issue and offered it to me again.

And I was happy to have the chance. I played with different fonts on this issue to try to make it more "fun." However, I am most proud of the cover.

The child was photographed by a staff photographer writing "Back to School" in different colored markers on a white dry erase board. It sounded better in theory, but probably wouldn't have printed very well. As per request of the editor, I put a black chalk board behind the child. By using Adobe photo shop, I cut out the child and merged him with a large image of a black board. Then I cut out chalk, merged it into the new file to cover the dry erase marker in his hand. Then I wrote "Back to School" with a tool in photo shop and managed to get it to a more of a spray paint pattern and point size that resembled chalk.

For the inside pages I tried to change a few things and have some fun with it. The header on Football schedules is in marker felt font. I used this font through out the issue on headers just like this for lists of school supplies, school contacts and schedules.

I don't mind doing special issues like this one, because I learn so much about Quark and photoshop as well as the whole printing process.

The next few pages below are more examples of editing and headline writing. I picked these pages in particular because they were full stories and listed on the "Assignments" teaser on the cover. To view more pages from this issue please visit www.theeagle.com/BacktoSchool2011/

After graduation...

So I completed my degree and jumped in the river in my gown. ( I'm on the far right.)

Playing catch up
I got all the contest entries together and send off in December-January, then in my April, The Star's editorial board went to contest at Texas Intercollegiate Press Association and Society of Professional Journalists. We won the most contests at TIPA in the history of The Star, (we brought home 32!) including Sweepstakes for Best College Newspaper Website. We consider that as best in the state. Then it got even better at SPJ regionals, when they said we were best in Texas and Oklahoma! Star team go!

It's a great feeling to know I was the managing editor during the publication of all those entries. Most of the entries were from the 2011 fall semester. After 4 years, the second half of that semester always seemed to be the strongest.

My last couple of weeks were bitter sweet. It was the closing of a chapter, but I was ready to begin the next. The Star and the people who make it what it is literally saved my life in a lot ways. But that's another story.

Present day
I've been back at The Eagle in Bryan doing copy editing and page design for a little over 2 months now and learned so much! I'm uploading content to the web and for the most part every Friday's region front is courtesy of me.

I've been looking and applying for full time jobs since February or March, but only a few interviews so far. I'm still waiting for the right opportunity for me. Fortunately, The Eagle welcomed me back with open arms in the mean time. And I am glad to be there.

I'll try to upload a few of the region fronts in the coming week, as well as the Back to School issue I just finished. It's on stands August 7.

The news doesn't stop for rolling black outs

So, in light of the rolling black outs last week, classes were canceled Wednesday, but putting out Thursday's paper was not. Luckily for the Star team the electricity stayed on all afternoon and through out the night.

Because Wednesday was also National Signing Day for football recruits, the back sports page featured a special design done by the design editor. Therefore, in the true spirit of team work, I jumped on in copy and design to help out. On this particularly long Wednesday night in the office, that started at 11:30 that morning, I designed the front page.

The design editor finished with sports and took back over the front page to put in some minor tweaks, but the overall idea of placing the black out story on the empty hallway photo was mine. The photo editor dropped it on the server, and it inspired the design.

As managing editor, I tend to have my hand in almost everything, but it was nice to have something in regular production to look at and know that I did it, which is one of the reason's I started this blog. After four years of headlines and stories, everything starts to get jumbled.

I wrote the headline for the dominant story too. Click the image to get a closer look.

San Marcos Stars

Here is the San Marcos Stars issue of the advertising supplement Satellite. I oversee the production of Satellite for The Star. In this issue, readers previously voted online at universitystar.com who their favorite local business is for a particular category.

In this particular issue, and why I am posting this, I designed the entire issue myself, front to back, minus the ads, in a very long day. Usually design on Satellite is done by the graphic designers. I also did quite a bit of editing on this issue. The cover is a play off of the house ad that was done by the advertising coordinator. When coordinating these issues, I like to try to use the same theme from the promotional house ads to make the whole product come full circle.

It's a labor of love. Therefore, I'm posting the whole issue. Click on the images to get a closer look.

Internship pt. 4

Here are a few inside pages from the 16-page spread Back to School issue. I was able to copy them from The Eagle's website. So the ads are there.

A lot of the content was school supply and contact lists, football schedules, etc., and i had to do a lot of reformatting the text to get what I could to fit. I took care to make sure a list or calendar did not cut off in the middle of a school subheading, meaning all the supplies and contacts are there for the school listed. The rest of the schools were put online.

*I tried to include clipart where I could to brighten up the pages and break up the text.


*This page had a triangle ad they gave me the hardest time when giving it enough gutter space. I took care to pay attention to the text spacing along the hypotenuse.

Internship - pt. 3

Here are a few of the inside pages for Land and Livestock Post, minus the advertising. I copy edited, wrote headlines, and did layout design for the 22-page spread. The LLP already had a standard look and format, including its house ads. However, because I did not have the freedom to adjust the ads to the space I needed them to, and the ads just looked to be out of date. So I made some of my own using the photos already on the LLP photos on the server. I learned a lot about QuarkXPress and NewsEdit Pro during the production and became more comfortable with what I had already learned.

Click on the images to get a closer look.





*Notice the house ad on page below

*This is the center spread/main feature. It was on the drought and how the area had seen an unusually high amount of rainfall.

Internship - pt. 2

Here are the section fronts and front page I completed. I not only designed, but I copy edited and wrote headlines. Although, right now I don't remember which headlines I did write.
Click on the images to get a closer look.

Intership - pt. 1

I know it's been a long time and these are a little late, but here is an update on my life and portfolio.

I've now completed the first semester of my senior year, and crunch time is starting to find a job for after graduation.

Over the summer, I completed an internship at The Eagle in Bryan. I did copy editing and layout design. Because The Eagle is not a large newspaper, I feel like I had more opportunity to learn and be useful. I earned the opportunity to work on and design a few front pages for the region section and even a front page.

After a month of working at The Eagle, I was asked to design the July 1 issue of Land and Livestock Post, a bimonthly, agriculture publication. A month later, the editor asked me to help out and do the inside pages of the Back to School issue.