Design
Graphic design was what initially drew me to journalism. In junior high, I would leaf through copies of the West Side Story (WSS) that my older brother brought home, taking in each spread with awe. It was then I knew I wanted to be a designer for the WSS — so I too could bring life to stories through design.
When I began high school, I enrolled in the Foundations of Journalism class where I learned some design basics. Oftentimes, outside the classroom, I found myself Googling ways to recreate certain effects and elements in the Adobe apps. I then attended Media Now, a summer journalism program, to further my design skills before eventually joining the WSS as a designer. With guidance from veteran designers in the newsroom, hours spent watching Adobe and Procreate tutorials, and countless inspiration pictures saved from Pinterest (1,446 to be exact), I’ve become the designer I am today!
Now, as Design Editor, I have the privilege of cultivating the next generation of WSS designers; I hope to leave them just as — if not more — inspired as preceding designers have done for me.
COVER STORIES
WOMEN OF WEST
NSPA Design of the Year: Newsmagazine Cover Honorable Mention
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IHSPA News Magazine: One Page Design 1st Place
For this article’s cover and spreads, I wanted to highlight all the women interviewed by placing their photos front and center. Acquiring these photos was by far the hardest endeavor of this whole process. I combed through thousands of yearbook pages across more than 16 yearbooks and decades’ worth of my high school’s newspaper archives. I also worked to obtain photos from the interviewees themselves. Allowing photos to tell the histories and journeys of these women was important to me as I believed solely words wouldn’t do them justice. I also believed that showing photos dating back to the women’s early high school years could allow readers—who are current high school girls—to see themselves in these women, empowering them to strive for similar success.
BEAUTY BEYOND BODIES
Although this design was created before the release of the Barbie movie, I greatly used the movie’s promotional poster as inspiration. I tried to create the quintessential “Barbie” look and feel to this design, because for decades, Barbie dolls have been viewed as symbols of beauty. I didn’t want to in any way glamorize eating disorders or self-harm and wanted to craft my design while being sensitive to the topic. I also wanted to create an inviting, positive design to accompany the text that would cause all people, especially students, to want to read the article instead of being scared of it because of the topic.
CAMPAIGN COUNTDOWN
For Campaign Countdown, I really designed the whole spread around the election. From the red and blue color palette to the voting-related icons, I scattered the pages with overtly themed elements. However, specifically for the infographics, I wanted to include art that cleverly tied to the Campaign Countdown theme (such as a clock for time, and the track for the presidential race).
DOUBLE-PAGE SPREADS
PROTEST FOR PERRY
This design was started and completed within a few hours of the exporting deadline. Due to the previous article/spread being pulled because of a separate issue, I had to quickly compose this design as its replacement. I chose to keep this design black and white to let the photos speak for themselves and the contrast of the black and white allowed me to play around with absences and white spaces on the pages. I also thought this color palette choice was appropriate given the gravity of the situation. Although I didn't spend the most time on it, this is one of my proudest designs; it taught me what it means to be a true journalist.
LANGUAGE LOVERS
I took much of my inspiration for Language Lovers from the popular language-learning app Duolingo. From the color palette to the style of the people, I used Adobe Illustrator to recreate many familiar elements from the app into this design. Overall, I wanted to go for a clean and consistent theme throughout the spread, so I made sure to evenly dispersing the key colors across each page. This was a really fun spread to design. I enjoyed finding clever ways to incorporate Duolingo elements to grab reader's attentions!
KIRPES WITH A MATHEMATICAL PURPOSE
IHSPA News Magazine: Multiple Page Design 3rd Place
As a previous student of Mr. Kirpes, I wanted this design to truly embody his spirit and exude his undying devotion to mathematics. So I made sure to include elements of mathematics such as numbers, graphing paper, geometric shapes, and even a math pun next to the deck! Again for this design, I flipped through over 20 years’ worth of yearbook pages to acquire photos and interviews of Mr. Kirpes. I wanted to show the large impact and dedication he has had toward West High School throughout his 26 years here.
SINGLE-PAGE SPREADS
WHAT'S WEST GRATEFUL FOR
IHSPA News Magazine: Single Page Design 2nd Place
While brainstorming for this design, I initially drew inspiration from the Wayside School book series. After playing around with various different color palettes I settled on these hues of blues to bring a whimsical feel to the page. In each window of the building, I drew doodles corresponding to each of the quotes.
FOR THE BOYS
For this design, I wanted to play around with the white space and cutouts. I cut out Carter to show how he feels this sort of isolation from being one of the few boys that participate in the arts. The black and white colors of the photos also contribute to the feeling of isolation. I intentionally used the photo of the choir with outstretched hands because it looked as if they were conveying Carter's pleads.
COMFORT OVER CONVENTION
For Comfort Over Convention, I chose to stick to a more simplistic concept. I wanted a clean design that would display the text uniformly. Similar to how the article is about ditching formal attire for comfortability, the structure of the design symbolizes rigidity of formal clothing.
ART
LUNAR NEW YEAR
This was my first piece of art that I created during Foundations of Journalism. After experimenting with various brushes, colors, and tools, I exported this art to a website called Thinglink. There, I added clickable buttons to each dish where viewers could read detailed descriptions of the foods' significance.
*The Thinglink version was lost after my school removed access to my account
SPRING SEARCH
This design was the first piece I’ve ever done solely using art — with the exception of the use of Adobe InDesign for the text and QR code — and it was the most time-consuming. Procreate logged 24263 strokes made and 33h 9m of total tracked time spent just on art alone! I wanted the page to be busy enough to effectively conceal every egg, but not be too busy where it would be impossible to find all 20 eggs, keeping the page both fun and challenging. I also decided to not limit myself with color, as I wanted this design to vibrantly scream SPRING!