The SMCC Beacon—Spring 2022
Process
This issue of the SMCC Beacon is much more ambitious and elaborate than the last thanks to the explosive growth of the staff, which doubled in size in just one semester. The design process of the compilation changed, and it became a truly collaborative project involving more than twenty people. A full list of credits for everyone involved with the project is available at the bottom of this page.
Three designers (Elizabeth Fortier, Ian Bohrman, and Xander Morley - who has posted his layouts here) volunteered to create spreads laying out a set share of articles using a style template I made from the Fall 2021 issue. These, along with a spread for Student Art & Poetry created by Alexandra Griffin, were unified into a single whole by Justin Dennison, who also added several additional spreads while working with Rachel Guthrie, our advisor and professor. I added layouts for the remaining articles and sections, refined and unified the styles and typography, and created graphics and decoration for the issue, producing the final product.
All of the articles were originally published digitally, on the Beacon's website. Besides myself, everyone working on the layouts had also been writing many of these articles, sourcing images for them, and editing student contributions, all while also completing coursework for the class itself. I encourage you to look at their work on Behance if you appreciate what you see here!
This Technology spread is my own work from scratch. The vector art is my own as well, created specifically for this layout.
This Health spread is by Elizabeth Fortier, the Spring 2022 Health editor and one of the designers for this project. I modified it to unify with the styles for the final version and added the section banner, but the layout is essentially the same.
This spread is by Xander Morley, one of the Spring 2022 Technology editors and one of the designers for this project. Check out his work on his portfolio, along with several of his other layouts, at this link! Again, the layout is unchanged besides some minor final edits.
Graphics
As always, I try to incorporate some illustrative elements into my graphic design. In this case, that involved making icons for each column / section to be used in the table of contents and in the footer. I also illustrated a couple of articles such as 'College Students Don't Like That Elon Musk is Running Twitter.' One really fun thing I did for this issue was making textured patterns to represent each section - these appear in the table of contents and in the section banners.
LEFT: Sample text from the older Fall 2021 edition. RIGHT: Sample text from the Spring 2022 edition, with improved headline, better spacing, more spacious drop cap, and small caps
What's Changed?
There are lots of changes in this issue. Some include:
- The articles are now divided into 8 sections, mostly based on column. Each section is color-coded and has it's own special pattern and icon to go with it.
- Trajan headlines are now lighter-weight. This is a welcome change as while heavy Trajan is great for small chunks of text, many of the Beacon's headlines are quite long and the new weight is classy and versatile.
- The page count banner is fixed, which was previously difficult to read and is now much sleeker.
- Drop caps are cleaner and followed with small caps. While reading ancient OpenOffice documentation, I read the suggestion of following drop caps with small caps to ease the transition. Although it seemed a little archaic to insist on something like that, I actually really like how it looks with the styles for this issue. Futura small caps are dubious, but increasing point size and weight got a really nice result that helped get the most out of the splashes of colored text and which does a fantastic job of drawing the eye to the articles.
Credits
Faculty Advisor / News Writing & Production Professor: Rachel Guthrie
Production Manager / Design Lead: Liliana Andersen
Layout Design: Alexandra Griffin, Elizabeth Fortier, Liliana Andersen, Justin Dennison, Ian Bohrman, Xander Morley
Graphics: Liliana Andersen
Writers: Emma Campbell, Elizabeth Fortier, Nick Lawler, Alexandra Griffin, Justin Ouelette, Dominique Oliver, Anthony Gendron, Xander Morley, Justin Dennison, Daniel Nemitz, Ian Bohrman
Student art & poetry contributors: Logan Mullikan, Jordi Songe, Christopher Carpenter, Christopher Jamison
Cover photo: Liliana Andersen
With thanks to: Clayton Hoyle, Noelle G, Tim Gillis, Professor Lareen Smith and her Marine Science class
