Missing the layout deadline

Ugh, the headline of this alone gives me chills and makes me angry at the same time. Constantly, students (and at times me as well) are spending way more time during print week fixing layout errors of editors who "just don't have the eye for it."

It is a difficult thing to teach.

For me, I think I have the eye for it, but I am still slowly understanding layout theory. In high school, I we had no newspaper class, and I wasn't really a yearbook kid, so going into teaching my class, I had no background in design. I could Photoshop your photo however you wanted, but I had never put it on a page.

Today's session with Tracy Collins helped me to understand something that I have been hearing a lot this week:


"There is no one way to do it."

I have gone through style and design books, adopted things from other teachers, and I have tried to come up with some hard rules on designing a page, but the truth is, you still have to be an artist about it.

Today, Collins showed me that it is important to stand back at the end and go, "So does this look good?" It is very possible to follow every rule and have a boring or ugly page. It is also very possible to break every rule and have an incredibly powerful page. It is having that eye and discretion that matters most.

So what deadline was missed as indicated in the title? I didn't get my page to him for critique on time.

Feel free to comment on my publication's pages. Constructive criticism is always welcomed (and it is easy credit for comments).

Bobby Oliver

San Pasqual High School

Escondido, California