Basic Design Lesson Plans

ASNE Lessons for Basic Design

Day One
Basic Design Lesson – Day One
Basic Design PowerPoint – Day One
Newspaper Style Guide
What Do We Look Like?

Day Two
Basic Design Lesson – Day Two
Basic Design PowerPoint – Day Two
Dummy Sketching Sheets
Pre-Pitch Story Organizer

Other Lessons

The design of a print publication or website is crucial to determining how readers take in the information that is available to them. Designing print and online content is much more complicated than assuming the most important information should be large and on top. Although you should visually prioritize the most important stories, there are other factors to consider when creating a visually compelling and aesthetically pleasing presentation.

Balancing certain types of content with others is crucial. Avoid putting a lot of text on a page without art elements to break it up. People tend to skip over “gray” pages that have uninterrupted text. By using subheads, photos, infographics and pull quotes, you create entry points for a reader to become interested in the story. Emotional images in the center of the page draw the reader in, and varying fonts and text sizes create a dynamic visual package.

Generally speaking, you should never try to create a design for a page before you have the page’s content selected and created. You should be designing to suite your stories — not the other way around.

Design Guides and Tutorials

• Story Design Step-by-Step, a slideshow put together by a former editor, designer and columnist who now consults on print and online design.
• 5 Can’t Go Wrong Tips for Newspaper Design, a slideshow put together by a former editor, designer and columnist who now consults on print and online design.
• A graphic design gallery with examples of magazine designs from 1930 to 1969
• Color, Contrast & Dimension in News Design from Poynter
• A guide to HTML basics (for online design)

Lessons

• An Introduction to Newspaper Design
  An exploration of what good design looks like — and what it used to look like — as students prepare to redesign their own publication.
• Laying Out the High School Paper
  Modular layout is the standard for most publications. This lesson asks students to identify part of modular page layout and then design their own in groups, comparing and contrasting to a known standard.
• Photojournalism and Creating a Layout
  This unit explores photography and design, asking students why photos are important, what makes a good photo story and how one approaches it, and looks at examples of award-winning designs and photos. Has gifted and special education components.
• Redesigning The Wheel
  A good plan to lay the groundwork for redesigning your school paper. From comparing good publications to yours to eliciting comments to good design elements to use as you go forward.
• Redesigning Your High School Newspaper
  An extensive plan for redesigning the school paper that could be used at the end of the year during slack time and as a final exam grade. Also great for generating new ideas for the paper.
• Maestro Creativity Challenge
  Students work collaboratively and creatively using maestro teamwork.