Critique: Screen Design Numero Uno

Well, I have completed my first week as a department designer. All in all, the process was quite frustrating. But I’m taking the experience with a grain of salt and chalking it up to first week chaos and miscommunication.

The first frustration I experienced was with my editing team on the whole. They were confused on deadlines as well as what was needed on their part to fill an entire page, so this made my job incredibly difficult. I was happy that I was able to take the initiative and get the art in for the “Take Twos” by the Tuesday deadline. But then I was also thrown another page element (the What’s Hot, What’s Not sidebar) on Friday, so finding the art for that was a little bit last minute. Also, I wasn’t told by my team that I wouldn’t have the text in for my story or the info for the box (so there was no way of getting art) by Saturday when I came in to design, so I came back in early Sunday to get it all done then. Okay. I’m now finished with my rant about working with the editors. But I think we got the confusion out of our systems and I think my next time around will go much more smoothly.

The second frustration I had was with the requirements of the design itself. Because the editorial content of the page consisted of two “Take Twos” and a sidebar, my opportunities to get really creative were somewhat limited. I was given some conflicting information about the packaging of the Take Twos (and whether they needed to be in one box or could fit into two). In my very first layout of the page, I included a headline and deck (which later had to be removed) and packaged the Take Twos as two separate stories, with the small info box as the only linking element. Once I got into the lab, I found out that the entire review needed to be in the boxes, so I kept the basic layout and just packaged everything in two separate pieces with the “What’s Hot” sidebar as the third element.

Here’s the initial page I designed at home before coming into the lab:

screen 2.1
Originally uploaded by maggiemeyer.

After some conversations in the VOX office on Sunday, I made some tweaks with how everything was packaged, and I was fairly happy with the way I left it Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately though, I didn’t save an early copy on my jump drive, but it was basically my original layout with each story in a “Take Two” Box and the “What’s Hot” sidebar in an opaque blue with the Jennifer Hudson and Simon Cowell images on either side with faint circles surrounding the photos.

Due to some unforeseen changes that had to be made because of VOX style and restrictions, the design had to undergo even more of a makeover (and unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the changes myself because I was in class all day and without email…ugh). So here’s the final look for the page:

This design around wasn’t ideal, but I think I have a better idea now of what needs to be done both on my part and the part of the editors and art directors, so I think my next try at department design will be a more positive experience.