It’s not very often that a daily student paper will run a long-term, graphic-heavy investigative series. So when it does, designers are eager to utilize the rare and valuable extra time to plan and produce the accompanying in-depth layouts.
This week, The Post launched the “Under the influence, under twenty-one” series, taking over the front page of the paper for three consecutive days. Writers, editors and designers met together well in advance to prepare for the multi-platform project, including written stories, graphics and a flash web presentation.
Ashley Cappellazzi started off the series with today’s front-page design. With break out statistics and a draft of the story in advance, she boiled down statistics to create visual explanations of the complex data.
From concept to printed page, many versions are created along the way.
First, we read the story and come up with sketches to boil down the lists of information into easy-to-understand visuals.
Then, we move to the computer and experiment with putting all the peices together, using placeholder text and boxes in place of photos.
And finally, the final product.
Every page becomes a series of versions before it ends up the way you see it in the paper. The larger amount of text for this series posed an even greater challenge.
Be sure to pick up a copy of the paper today and stay tuned for Tuesday and Wednesday's edition, and the launch of the flash project!
