Daily and weekly section fronts - Favorites 2013, part 2

Click on the image for a closer look. 

   

Daily and weekly section fronts -- Favorites, 2013

Lately, I have been working for the copy desk section doing the weekly feature sections, Food (a 4-page section published on Wednesdays) and Brazos Life (a 7-page section published in the Sunday editions of the paper). I also do the Region front on rotation. Click on the images for a closer look.

Here are some of my favorite designs:

Gameday graphics, 2012

Also in 2012, I had the opportunity to design a few graphics published on the covers of The Eagle's weekly Gameday section, published during football season. Below are the graphics and how they looked published. Click on the images for a closer look.

This graphic was made for a bye week for the Aggies before they had three road games in a row, two in Alabama and one in Mississippi. The sign was purchased from Stockphoto and originally green. The background was free from stock.xchng. The graphic was published Oct. 17, 2012.

I designed the graphic below when the Aggies were awaiting the announcement as to which bowl game they would play in. The photo of the bowling ball and pins was purchased from Stockphoto, the logos from online media kits. Then I combined a little creative cutout placement and shadowing. The graphic was published Nov. 17, 2012.

Special publications in 2012

It's been a crazy year (OK almost two), but I am working full time at The Eagle now. Here are some of the projects I did in 2012.
Honoring Heroes, Veterans tab for 2012 I did all the design, cover and inside pages, copy edited and wrote headlines.

and Aggie Playbook for the SEC, 2012 For the Aggies inaugural season in the Southeastern Conference, The Eagle put out a magazine (on glossy paper!). I designed all pages except for the game board in the back.

And Johnny Manziel: Road to the Heisman. After a whirlwind of a season, not only did the Aggies hold their own during their first season in the SEC, but the youngest player to ever win the Heisman brought it back to Aggieland. On this commemorative issue, I designed the cover and a majority of the inside pages.

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.