We just — *SMOOTCH* — love these Valentine’s Day pages
While we in Virginia are recovering from Tuesday’s ‘Potomac Primary,’ why don’t the rest you tell us what you’re doing for Valentine’s Day?
Did you design a nice cover? Put together a touching illustration? Write an amusing story?
Let us know!
We’ll kick things off with a page created by our good friend at Fayetteville, N.C.’s SmartNews, Jim McBee:
A long time back, I suggested we do something about how difficult the dating scene is in Fayetteville because of the high ratio of single guys to single women (this is where Fort Bragg, a huge military installation, is). And then with V-day coming along, we were looking for different things to write about than flowers and chocolate.
Asking 100 women was correspondent James Johnson’s brainstorm; the candy hearts infographic/photo illo was my idea, photo and painstaking candy breaking done by freelance photographer Albert Stichka.
The overall execution’s not perfect — the story could use more, uh, meat — demographics data. I’ve heard it suggested that the graphic would be more effective if the 18 unbroken hearts were bunched together. It would certainly be more readable. It could use better chatter. I guess this is what happens when you try to do infographics with no graphics department.
Clay Sisk of The Times Record News in Wichita Falls, Texas, posted this one at NewsPageDesigner. He did both the design and the photoillustration:
See Clay’s portfolio here and find his personal web page here.
This weekend tab cover was designed by Elizabeth Smith of The State, back home in South Carolina:
Elizabeth writes:
The delicious food photo was a MCT wire find. Bob Fila of the Chicago Tribune shot it in Feb. 1999. The dish is meringue hearts with whipped cream and raspberries, according to the cutline.
I tripped over it by accident looking for something else and we needed a Valentine food related photo for our Weekend cover as the story was about dinner/deserts/best window seat in Columbia. So I snagged it and made it work for us.
A reader called too. She wanted to know where she could get the dessert for her Irish husband for Valentine’s Day. I had to disappoint her and tell her the truth about the photo.
See Elizabeth’s portfolio here. Make sure you scroll back at least one page to see the Roswell, N.M., travel page. Heh heh…
Here’s another nice tab cover — illustrated by our friend Fred Matamoros of the Tacoma, Wash., News Tribune:
Fred writes:
That is pencil over red tempera (school poster paint!). Then on a separate sheet I did some black printer’s ink rolls with an old brayer for the smudgey stuff.
Smudgey stuff is fun isn’t it? Yes.
Then it was all scanned in. So, mostly traditional.
Just gorgeous. Find more of Fred’s work here.
We posted recently about a project by Michael Higdon and his pals at The (University of ) Nevada Sagebrush. Michael asks:
The assistant A&E editor suddenly quit [Monday night] and with her went the A&E cover story, thus the art. I whipped this up on deadline. Do you think it works? Too bright, is the monkey too much or did it come out okay?
Worry not, Mikey: You can never have too much monkey. Experience the Higdon portfolio at NewsPageDesigner.
Milt Klingensmith of The Grand Rapids Press illustrated this funny piece on how to win your lady’s love: By fixing her damn house.
Gee, no wonder why I always bomb out miserably on Valentine’s Day. I don’t even know how to plug in a hammer.
Anyway, Milt writes at NPD:
Homes cover on how to get back on your better-half’s good side before Valetine’s Day. Illustrated and laid this one out. Always fun to get my hands on the type and design that too.
If you’ve not seen Milt’s illustration portfolio, drop everything and take a look at it now. It’s wonderful stuff with an edge.
And finally, we have this fun page by Trent Koland of The Times of Northwest Indiana. Trent writes:
A story about a Valentine’s Day concert by our local symphony orchestra. They are playing Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto. Of course there was no real art available. So I thought this very simple illustration I made would complement the package perfectly.
See Trent’s NewsPageDesigner portfolio here.
So do you have a sweetie of a Valentine’s Day page? Send it!