Sydney Mulford: NSPA Designer of the Year
Personal Statement
In April of 2023, I learned I was going to be one of the Co-Editor-in-Chiefs (EIC) of the school’s newsmagazine for my senior year. And as soon as that year's EICs graduated, my Co-EIC and I jumped to work. We both had big dreams and aspirations for how we would shape the EIC role.
During the summer, I helped create a new design guide for all the staffers to follow. I sorted through font after font before deciding on one that would match our logo better. I then picked fonts that corresponded with it to use for subheads, bylines, and other parts of a spread. Next was the website, I used the same design guide to pick out new fonts and a design that would better suit our website. The Messenger went from showcasing a seemingly drowning student to our top pictures from the past month and our newest articles. I made the website easier to navigate and have one solid aesthetic throughout.
When the school year started, I worked closely with the multimedia editor to teach all the new staffers design–I took everything I learned from the upperclassmen before me and the tricks I learned over the past two years. I taught them the basics of page design (and how to follow the design guide), then the more intricacies of Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and finally how to create a spread on Adobe InDesign that flows cohesively.
Also throughout this year, I began to push myself as a designer. I wanted my designs to have more meaning and deeper stories within them. While I had always used Adobe Illustrator, I began to push myself out of my comfort zone with Adobe Photoshop. I learned the new tools and tricks that Photoshop provides, and I also started using photos a lot more–this taught me a lot more about settings on a camera. If it was something I could take a photo of, I took it. I used Photoshop to cut out, edit, and alter the picture as needed. And finally, Adobe InDesign became my best friend when I put it all together. But when I had wild ideas for a spread, I fell back to Illustrator. Illustrator allowed me to create things out of the ordinary and along the way I learned new tools that I would continue to use the rest of the year.
As EIC, I created the master InDesign files for all of our digital issues. After staffers created their spreads, they would send them to me and I would compile everything into the master. This meant learning to have a stronger attention to detail. While most things were simple enough, like changing the end sign to match the headline color or re-embedding images and graphics, others were much more involved, like when a spread's spaces were all in a different font or when spreads were created using the wrong page sizes. But no matter what, I gave feedback to the staffer about what was wrong and how they could learn from it to improve their design in the future–this was one of my favorite parts about being EIC, teaching.
My journalism class opened my eyes to the thing I’ll confidently pursue for the rest of my life, the thing I love more than anything, and the thing I did not know existed until high school: design. And maybe one day, another girl will be writing her NSPA portfolio statement, and somewhere in her room will sit one of my designs that tells its own inspiring story.
Breaking news: the end of journalism is here
Click here for pdf file.
As a student journalist, writing this opinion piece meant a lot to me–and I knew the design also needed to be well thought out. I created the Grim Reaper holding a singular newspaper to represent the impending fall of journalism and the flying papers to represent the mess of current journalistic organizations across the country. The Grim Reaper stands still to show a sense of dread while watching the chaos of the flying papers unfold in front of them.
2. Banned Cover and back cover duo
Click here for pdf file.
After my school district banned four books from their school libraries, I created this cover and back cover duo design, which pushed me to learn Photoshop for the first time. All the redacted words represent the literature and knowledge taken away from readers and students, while the words “banned” in bright red create an eye-catching contrast to the main double truck feature story in the issue.
3. Vices
Click here for pdf file.
For Vices, I wanted to create the sense of the messiness but also the stress of getting involved with drugs, alcohol, and vaping as a pressured high school student. I used brightened pictures of flour to create the lines of cocaine–and opted to use the cocaine lines for at the top of the page instead of traditional header lines–then I used cut-out pictures of a vape, an alcohol bottle, a pill bottle and cap, and pills. I strung everything around in a slightly messy but still thought-out manner to emphasize how these things become vices to students in stressful situations.
4. Removed
Click here for pdf file.
Removed was the article that went along with the Banned cover, so I used similar elements to tie them together but also made sure they were two different designs. Removed was a very long article, so there was little design space to work with, and I had to experiment with different ideas to make everything fit. I ultimately created a book page texture for the background and added red marker strokes, redacted lines, pencil lines, and a torn page to represent what was taken away from students and the unseen harmfulness of it.
5. Letters of advice
Click here for pdf file.
Letters of advice was printed in the annual senior issue, so it had to match the theme: travel to represent seniors leaving high school and traveling on to new destinations. I came up with the vintage postcard idea to display notes of advice from the newsmagazine graduating seniors in a cheerful but slightly bittersweet way. I used Photoshop and pictures of the school and seniors to make the vintage postcards seen throughout the design. I used the stamps my late grandfather collected to create a fun and colorful background that fills up space without being overwhelming or boring.
