Design
Newspaper spreads, magazine pages, websites and social media posts– the right design can make content more appealing and immerse the reader. Throughout various platforms, I’ve emphasized the importance of theme unification. The visuals on all of our platforms have similar fonts and design concepts. I designed our social media pages to follow the same theme as our newspaper and website to build up our brand identity. Through months of web design tutorials and an aim to focus on content, I redesigned the website that represents our program and its work.
Redesigning the website
Simple but effective, our black and white design has a slick, professional look that allows the reader to focus on content. In line with our newspaper, the website has a lot of sleek squared edges. I re-designed the heading to be basic but easy to navigate, and our home clearly showcases our top stories in a concise and consumable manner. Our right column allows for videos, scores, podcasts, editorials and similar entities to make the cover page more accessible for the reader. Find the full website on smremarker.com .
Double-page newspaper spreads
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This design uses spot color on multiple infographics to grab the reader’s’ attention. Furthermore, the commentary on the far right adds additional anecdotes into the overarching theme without taking away from the main story.
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The left side of the page mainly focuses on the story. The right side is more abstract, using a spot color to emphasize important statistics.
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The left side of the spread has the story, leaving the right side for visuals.
Single-page newspaper spreads
For this page, the dominating helped pull the reader in. I added some important statistics but kept space for another personal column on the bottom.
As the Issues section front cover, I had less room to include a main and a secondary story. Instead of using one dominant image, I used three images on the right side to not take away from the whole spread.
Digital stories
These are longer newspaper stories that were then translated to the web. I designed these formats to help immerse the reader in the story as they scroll.
Social media
When I first joined staff, I got to work establishing our social media presence. Each year I set up a unique uniform design so all of our posts look similar— further building our brand. I always add a watermark in the top right corner and keep the same font. Social media has been very helpful in growing our following and drawing attention to various stories that otherwise might slip through the cracks.
