KARINA BLODNIEKS
DESIGN
Effective design requires an eye for shape, color, line, and depth - in a lot of ways, it's like art. The page is the first interaction a reader has with the content, so it must be eye-catching and sleek. I think traditional newspaper style turns away a lot of the very population a high school paper is trying to reach, so I try my best to keep everything visually appealing, keeping text in easy-to-read chunks.
I serve as my newspaper's primary designer. I do the layout of each newsprint issue, which are usually 24 pages in length with a page size of 11x14. I've known InDesign since 8th grade, when I was the editor-in-chief of my middle school's yearbook. Despite my long history with design, my style has changed constantly, coming to its culminating point in the January issue of the Lariat. Here are side-by-side designs of my first and latest covers of the Lariat.
First issue:
Third issue:
Examples of design for profile feature pages are some of my favorites, because I get to showcase interesting people which usually make for interesting photos. Obviously, however, unlike yearbook design, well-executed design of a tabloid-style paper is largely centered around text. One of the executive decisions I made as both head designer and editor-in-chief is that longer profile features get two pages in the issue, despite the fact that this is more newsmagazine-esque. I felt that giving the text space to breathe makes it more readable.
One of the main design issues myself and my editorial staff kept running into was the fact that, in concept, we wanted to remain like a newsmagazine. We felt that the type of layout and graphics attached to newsmagazines draw more readers, particularly ones who are scared off by the wordiness of traditional newspapers. Catering to a public high school, those are the very readers we're trying to entice. However, due to financial limitations, we could not conceivably publish more than two magazine-style publications a year, and we wanted to publish more frequently than that. So we decided on a tabloid-style paper with newsmagazine design.
Redesigning the Lariat logo
Going into my senior year, I knew it was time for a change from the typical Times New Roman header the newspaper had. I wanted to redesign our image, and in doing that, we needed a fun logo to go on social media and the top of our paper. Previously, our logo looked like this:
In pursuit of revitalization, I looked for a more youthful, recognizable logo to attach our names to. After many drafts, we settled on this logo, which is used on our print, website, and social media.
Second issue:
Spread design
