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— ORGANIZATION

The Huntington News

— CATEGORY

Editorial Design

Branding

— DATE

12.04.24 – 02.14.25

As Design Editor at The Huntington News, I led the redesign of our print issue, creating dynamic, clean layouts through a system of versatile templates and brand assets. To guide this transformation, I analyzed past editions, gathered feedback from staff on the strengths and weaknesses of the existing design, and leveraged my own experience to develop a comprehensive training guide for future design team members.

THE PROBLEM

After studying various previous print editions, I discovered that The Huntington News print layouts were repetitive, following the same title-text-image pattern on every page. Each page was designed from scratch without templates, making the process inefficient and inconsistent. Additionally, the title font was too thick, overpowering the rest of the page and disrupting the visual balance.

How might we redesign The Huntington News to create more dynamic layouts, improve efficiency with reusable templates, and refine typography for better readability?

Sketches

I began by sketching various layouts, aiming to find ways to break the title-text-image format. This involved experimenting with cut-out images, unique image arrangements, and the introduction of new design elements such as vertical teasers and a ‘quick reads’ section.

After presenting my ideas to the newspaper’s senior staff, I received feedback on what they liked and disliked, and what to implement in my next iteration.

Layout Exercises

Using the feedback from my meeting with senior staff, I designed a hands-on exercise for the design team. We cut up old editions of the newspaper and rearranged the existing assets to experiment with new layouts.

This exercise allowed us to physically visualize the changes we planned to implement while encouraging a more hands-on approach to design, rather than working solely on a screen.

Typography

One of the issues our old print editions faced was the thickness of our title font. This not only overpowered the page, but took up a lot of space.

I chose five fonts, each at two different weights, to present to senior staff. These fonts were thinner than our previous font while still being visually strong and available at several weights. From this selection, senior staff chose Georgia Regular as the title font.

Layouts & Feedback

After deciding on a font, I created seven front page variations. Each layout differed in image composition, number of stories, and title placement. This not only helped senior staff and I visualize the font changes, but what layouts were the most visually appealing.

Final Pages

After receiving final feedback, I created an InDesign CC Library with all of the new brand assets, as well as organized and assigned pages to design staff. Throughout the course of a week, we designed 12 pages and proofed them with section editors.

After doing final design edits, we sent the paper off to print!