Internship Series: The Virginian-Pilot — Week 2
Three A1’s and a sports section
Last week, when looking at the schedule for the week ahead, I got pretty nervous. I was scheduled to do the A1 three times, and it would only be the second week of my internship. That couldn’t be right. I wasn’t ready to do the A1 yet, right? Right??
Well, as it turns out, I was! Regardless of whether I thought I could design the A1 at the beginning of the week, I had to get ready to figure it out. I’ve found that that’s usually the best way to learn things — by being thrown into new situations (and with a bit of guidance), you learn to just work it out.
A1 Part 1
The first day doing the A1 was a learning curve both in designing a page unlike any I’ve done so far, and in getting used to the workflow.
I learned how to combine pages, use new section headers and get into a very different layout mindset. The Pilot often has four articles on the front, along with three or more reefers (they call them bazemores in honor of the very first article that got a reefer), the weather and a barcode. And in this case, an ad. Throw in some photos and factboxes, and there’s a lot of elements that get put out on the front.
However, that’s part of what makes the layout exciting. Figuring out how to get everything to fit without looking cramped, making sure the centerpiece gets the right emphasis, picking colors and adding in special design touches to make the page pop — these are all challenges that make layout design so interesting and rewarding.
One of my favorite parts of the page is the article at the very top about the jet fuel spill, and layering the type over the photo. The photo shows the stark contrast between the lone green plant left alive and the dead marsh that surrounds it, making it an impactful piece of art that’s locally focused.
A1 Part 2
I designed my third A1 this week on Friday, and I got my first real glimpse into what it’s like designing a front page when breaking news happens.
The page started out simply enough: there was beautiful Memorial Day art to lead the front, a fun story about FootGolf (it’s like soccer but on a golf course), an update on a local crime case and bazemores running down the side of the page.
I was partway through laying out the page when news broke about Lee Boyd Malvo’s, one of the D.C. snipers, life sentence being overturned. So I started working on making that the main story, when news broke about Travion Blount’s, a Virginian man sentenced to six life terms for a robbery, life sentence getting overturned. It was pretty surprising that both of these happened on the same day, so the director of presentation and I worked together to create a package of the two articles to tie them together to replace the local crime case. Once all of that got worked out, news broke about Jared Kushner wanting a secret way to talk to Moscow, and we ended up taking out the bazemores to make room for that article.
It was a pretty wild evening that required a lot of redesigning and editing, but that’s all part of the excitement of working in a newsroom. I was glad that I got to be there for it.
Sports
I was pretty excited to get to design sports pages this past week. I’ve always enjoyed the dynamic photography, getting to use school colors and many opportunities for cutouts.
This page was a late night results article, coming in around 11 p.m.. I had the page pretty much laid out and ready to go, and was just waiting on the article and photos before finishing off the page. I had my fingers crossed that the photography would be awesome.
I was not disappointed.
The baseball player flying into the air was an immediate standout, and I was excited to see some great negative space that I could use for the headline and start of the article. The red in the uniforms was so eye-catching that I had to use the color for the headline too.
Another highlight from sports? The fact that The Pilot has these awesome fish illustrations to go with their fishing forecast. I can’t wait to use another one.
Overall, week 2 was a lot of new experiences. New pages and sections to design, new people to work with and new fish illustrations to use. It was also a great introduction to how breaking news works in a daily newsroom and how important it is to be flexible with the A1 design. All good lessons to carry with me into week 3, which will include a couple more A1’s and another sport section. 🐟
This is the second installment in our internship series, where our contributors recount their news design internship experiences in weekly updates.
