Design
Heading into tenth grade as Sports Editor, I viewed my designing duties with trepidation, even fear. However, by the end of the year, I was designing with confidence both in the newsmagazine and on social media.
Magazine Design
I have to design a lot of things for the Sports section of the ODYSSEY newsmagazine. We have templates for Star Players and 5 Things to Know, but everything else in the sports section is designed by me. I really struggled at first, spending a whole weekend trying to figure out how to make a fairly simple two-page spread. However, after I made one layout, each one after it came more easily and I gained confidence in them. The photo displays my design for my story on quarterback Lucian Anderson III and his father, Lucian Anderson Jr., which won fifth place for spread design from the National Scholastic Press Association.
Social Media Design
Social media design was pretty much foreign to me at the start of the school year – we didn’t have a social media unit in Journalism I, so I had no experience designing anything for the platform. However, with help from Director of Audience Engagement Aza Khan, I learned how to use Canva to create designs that drew readers in. I also took some inspiration from national papers like the Washington Post and The New York Times. The photos show designs I’ve made for the ODYSSEY Instagram.
Multimedia Design
I mostly used Canva to design for my multimedia, which usually was an infographic. Especially for my columns, I used infographics to try and communicate data to readers in a more engaging way. I started out with a basic understanding of how to use Canva, but the more graphics I made, the better I got at them. The photos display some of those infographics.
Headshot Design
I’ve also used Photoshop to cut out headshots – this was for my column, but also for other stories like the Sports Staff’s “Outside the Lines” collaboration, where we asked different athletes what they did in the offseason of their sports. The photos show some headshots I’ve cut out.