Art direction of Yes! Weekly

There is a multitude of details that go into putting together a weekly newspaper—most of which I am still learning. My five weeks at the paper have flown by in a whirl of linked text, quick concepts into production, retouching photos, InCopy files, changing ads, and fixing errors.

The paper is produced in Adobe InDesign CS4 on a number of Macs in a short number of days. Calson Pro, Rockwell, Times New Roman, and Myriad are fonts used. I am following a design created by the former art director—emphasizing an energetic but clean feel for an alt weekly. Myriad is versatile and clean in relation to the heavy and loud Rockwell. This example shows Myriad Pro Light 36 "BE" and Rockwell Extra Bold 47 "there." Rockwell regular 9 "every day..." which prints well, even as drop-out type. Rockwell is primarily used as a headline typeface. While it would be readability problems as body copy, it works well in a small size for a caption or call-out.

I have started using some InDesign effects with good final results. The example to the left shows a dark inner glow used on an overlayed image for the headline for Dirt.

This touch gives the initial section photo more presence without having to make extra room for the headline. Do you think the photo underneath shows through enough while having the headline legible?

We operate at a quick pace, getting the paper to print Tuesday afternoon and delivered Wednesday morning. Printing is always an issue with newsprint, and I have been pleasantly surprised with the relative consistency of our printer (Media General).


Color is an issue with offset web printing. One way we tackle that is by making colors a mix of 1 or 2 colors, so there's less of a chance for registration errors. At the left is Yes! Teal, which is only a mix of black and cyan.

So, that's a small taste of the production and design of Yes! Weekly. In the coming weeks I'll talk more about concepts behind cover stories, working with InCopy and InDesign, retouching photos for print on newsprint, and more.

I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback to the visual presentation of the paper, as I am aiming to improve the look and consistency overall.