Student Newspapers

Working on a student newspaper is a strange experience.
It is remarkable that a group of twenty-something students, whom each have a couple years of experience at best, put out a 20+ page pager each week (not to mention manage a Web site).
I imagine it is a constant struggle for designers far better than me to work with others who don’t have a lot of design instinct or understanding of basic rules. It’s hard to tell colleagues why their well thought-out design won’t work, when they clearly spent a lot of time thinking about it. I imagine it’s another constant struggle for editors to work with designers and other visual staff members who don’t have much experience.
This is where I’m at in my career. I started doing design for The Nevada Sagebrush a year ago. I came in once a week to help with a couple of basic pages. This past fall when the school year started again I found myself with the entire Design Editor position in my lap, and I had no idea what to do with it.
I look at other people’s designs and have a large desire to achieve what they do. Unfortunately, I have had no formal training and very little guidance when it comes to designing. Most of what I know has been self-taught, picked up from observing others, and learned along the way.
It’s been a rough year so far, but there's definitely been improvement along the way. Growing into my editor position took time, but I learned how to oversee the pages for a twenty-something page paper, how to work with section editors, and how to tackle design challenges.
Despite my limited experience, I have a strong desire to learn more about this field. This semester I’m working to learn more about graphic design, web page management and pushing my design to the next level. I hope to use this blog to document my progress.