Critique March 14

This past week I had my two page feature. I had the unique opportunity to work with the four page feature since it was the theme issue. I had a good time working with Kate. I think we worked well together in creating a concept and executing it as one piece. We each were able to add a little bit of our own styles to the spreads. It went really smooth for me, and I think Kate would agree that our solution was something we are both proud of.
The hardest part was getting all the stories to fit neatly across the three spreads. They couldn't just start anywhere and we didn't want to have to cut one in half over the jumps. We ended up only doing this to one, so for the most part it turned our clean. The mug shots were interesting because they are not consistent, but I don't think it detracts too much from the design. I know the editors did the best they could to get all the shots in. The pictures are very important so the reader can put a face with a bios.
I came up with the idea to have the waves go through the story. It is supposed to be representative of an atom. I think it is a clever way to unite all the spreads together visually. I think it adds to the feel and tone of the story. We toyed with the percentage a lot. It was at ten and then we brought it down to 5. Hopefully it will print ok.
The only thing I don't like is the fonts are the same as in the departments, and I felt like the feature pages are the one chance to do something different and we couldn't do anything. We originally had a courier font that looked like a typewriter, but Debbie said it was too cliche. She wanted us to use avant garde, instead. I respect DK's opinions and knowledge so I went with it, but I would have opted for something different in the future. It isn't a big issue, but even being cliche it was still content driven. Oh well.
So now I am all done with features and only have my cover left to tackle in April.
This week I am getting my webpage up and going and toying with my portfolio. All four shorttalkers will be in action this weekend to get the two issues done.