View the Skiff prototype online

Visit this link:

http://issuu.com/tcutest/docs/new_tabloid_skiff

to view the Skiff in color and thumb through the pages like the finished product.

Let the feedback begin.

Julie put the finishing touches on the prototype today.
Tomorrow she will work with the first student focus group.
Students will be presented photocopied pages of a complete prototype in black and white.
The prototype is 12 pages, and the ones these students will see have been set up with two-sided pages and are actual size.
Students will be given the prototypes and instructed to read through them during the first third of the session.
Julie and I created a survey on www.surveymonkey.com and the students will be given that specific URL and answer 10 questions about their experience in the second part of the session.
Students can ask specific questions and offer observations during the last third of the session.

I'll post some of the those results on Wednesday or Thursday.

If you would like to compare a spring edition of the Skiff to the prototype, go to:

http://www.brocsears.com/tcuredesign.html

Rough prototype available

Julie, Kayla and Libby have been grinding out pages over the last week and have a rough prototype done.

To access a pdf of the June 24 prototype, click on this link:

http://www.brocsears.com/tcuredesign.html

Most of the content is in place. Adjustments have to be made on some of the typography (like the page two placeholder on the page one centerpiece) and a few of the layouts (like the Perspectives pages).

Julie will be refining the pages over the next three days and we will have the final prototype ready for focus groups on Monday.

One focus group will be Dr. Tommy Thomason's Media I class.

Julie and Kayla will present copies to each student and record their opinions.

Later in the week we will have a focus group of students who have majors outside the Schieffer School.

Throughout the summer we will be sending the prototype to other faculty, staff and students for feedback. I also have several people in the industry who will critique the prototype this summer.

I will post feedback from these groups and others throught the summer.

Pages two and three of the prototype

Julie has saved page two and three of the prototype in pdf form.

You can look at the pdf by clicking on this link:

http://www.brocsears.com/images/page2and3.pdf

She used Myriad in the page folios, cutlines, bylines, attributions, quotes, creditlines and info boxes.

The overall style is lighter than the spring editions of the Skiff in these areas and allows the headlines to have a greater voice, even though their point sizes are smaller than those used in the broadsheet.

The large black box on the left will be filled with an advertisement.

Minion and Myriad in the redesign

Minion and Myriad are the two fonts used in the redesign.

Minion for its classic yet sculptured appearance.

Myriad for the wide variety of weights we have in the system.

Samples of both:

Bakersfield editor writes about launching tab

Robert Bohler passes along this valuable link:

This post from the editor of the Bakersfield Californian, who has engineereda couple of newspaper turnarounds, offers some pretty articulate reasoning behind the launch of a tab format M-F (w/broadsheet on weekends)and some great illustration of how its staff achieved some of the content and design objectives we hope to.

http://brasstacksdesign.com/bakersfield_redesign.htm

What next?

Now that the nameplate foundation has been set, Julie and Kayla will begin working on a complete page one, page one folio treatment and the inside pages.

The prototype will be designed on a 50% editorial and 50% advertising split.

Breaking down the pages, this would create a 12-page paper that has 6 pages of advertising and 6 pages of editorial.

The proposed distribution:

Page one - editorial
Page two - 3 columns ad/3 columns editorial
Page three - 3 columns ad/3 columns editorial
Page four - editorial (Opinion pages)
Page five - editorial (Opinion pages)
Page six - 6 columns advertising
Page seven - 6 columns advertising
Page eight - 4 columns ad (puzzles) / 2 columns editorial
Page nine - 5 columns ad (including 2 columns puzzles) / 1 columns editorial
Page ten - 4 columns ad / 2 columns editorial
Page eleven - 4 columns ad / 2 columns editorial
Page twelve - 5 columns editorial (Sports) / 1 column ad

New Skiff nameplate

We chose the Bodoni design as the foundation for the new nameplate.


The flush-left treatment alone distances it from the nameplate from last year, but the Bodoni is visually different from the Minion font used in the headlines.


Julie and Bitsy will work tomorrow on a treatment for the side of the new racks.


The design must be finished this week and shipped off next week to the vendor so the racks will be completed and delivered by mid-July.

Vote on the three final nameplates

Here are the three final type treatments we are considering for the nameplate of the Skiff.

Take a close look at the options and vote on your favorite.

Leave comments if you can.

There will be refinements throughout the month, but one of the three will be the foundation element for the nameplate.

Bodoni (below)























Caslon (below)























Century (below)

Comments, revisions and the timetable

Folks have commented on the nameplates over the last few days via this blog, e-mail and in person.
I appreciate the feedback.

It is very helpful for the students to understand the scope of a project like this and how it extends beyond the Convergence Center where they work.
External input reminds them this is a publication that reaches out into their community and beyond.

A few excerpts:

jcranefwst said... "... I think there's already enough going on in the nameplate that you don't necessarily need any variation between 'TCU' and 'Daily', I'd keep them consistent and focus on creating the right contrast between 'TCU Daily' and 'Skiff'...
... Good luck with the redesign, keep up the good work."

Anonymous said... "...I like the frog pond graphic next to the S in Skiff...
... You guys are doing great! Let's see some more samples!"

Gayla Jett Shannon said... "My preference is #1 but perhaps omitting [Ext. 1902] - it seems to hang off the end. #1 seems sturdiest and most professional and "happening" at the same time. "

Kathryn Hopper said... "I like #4 - very clean and fresh. I also like having everything the same typeface. "


Tomorrow, the students will bring in updated versions and page one layouts.
Friday I'll post a few of the presentations.


Several people have asked about our timetable.
I created a back-out schedule in May that we have been operating from.
The original intent was to make the redesign a summer class to run over four weeks in June, but when the class concept was set aside, I backed the schedule out into May.
Many of the team did a great deal of foundation work on the project before the "fun" part of the redesign began.

The redesign schedule has been posted just above this text and if you click on it, it will pop up to a more readable size.

The nameplate must be completed by the second week of June. The designers will then work with Bitsy to create a treatment that will be placed on the sides of our new racks.
Bitsy will send off the design to our vendor who will build the new racks and deliver them to us in mid-July.