Design!
When scanning a web page or magazine, the things that catch the reader’s eyes are multimedia elements. Whether this is photos, statistics, or design elements, design elements can greatly enhance a reader's experience. Over my years as a journalist, I worked in both editing and creating designs that pop and convey information.
Highlander editor
In my first Highlander season as an editor, I designed spreads and helped form writing for three articles. This year we strove for a more unified design across spreads throughout the magazine and a more definite style guide. I tried to accomplish these goals while still bringing individuality into each spread and making the meaning of the writing pop.
Along with designing my spreads, I also edited designs other classmates produced. While new designers had the opportunity to create spreads, I ensured their work was up to par and demystified technological and aesthetic issues.
"Love is in the classroom" spread designed by Annabel Chia "Students' sleep schedules" spread designed by Adelaide Reinshagen
Interning for Highlander
As an intern editor for Highlander, I had the opportunity to design a spread. This means I would fashion the art, writing content, and page layout to make the finished page in the Highlander as readable as possible. It was hard to incorporate the writer's designs in a presentable way that emulated the main concepts of his work. Yet the finished product was something both of us could be proud of.
Art for Highlander
As a writer for the Highlander, I have to find a way to make my message pop out of the paper. Magazines are very design-heavy and it can be difficult to make my images look just right. In my first Highlander article about enlisting in the military, I drew an airplane and medals to go along with the article. One on my airplanes (the white one) was scraped so I had to quickly redo the design and push out the green airplane.
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My second Highlander spread was a mix of both art and photography. I took a picture of a shovel with dirt and edited seeds on the shovel. This was a fun project to complete and fostered my desire to be a Highlander editor. Creating art for Highlander magazines can be hard, and there are infinitely more ways to mess up than to get it right, yet good designs are very rewarding.
Statistics, graphs, and other multimedia
I first began to dabble in multimedia elements as a sophomore. I used a lot of statistics and graphs in my stories. Writers can represent information in the form of a graph. Over my years as a journalist, I have used many different formats to convey my ideas.
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One example of an infographic I implemented into my articles was a dive into how Indigenous American people are suppressed in society through institutionalized racism and other facets of contemporary culture. This infographic added to my overall representation of America's neglect of protecting its people equally.
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Below is an interactive tracking system of a Carlmont basketball game. This element was embedded into one of my articles and helped to pull readers in and make my point clear.
For some longer articles, multimedia aspects can serve as a respite from reading as they break up long chains of text. On one of my most expansive articles, on convicts in firefighting, I inserted three multimedia elements. One of these was a tweet from California Governor Gavin Newsom.
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The next three are part of another longer feature on the effect pets have on their human owners.
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Occasionally I insert a multimedia element into a beat if it further demonstrates a point or illuminates a concept. I inserted links to two such articles in which this was the case
