This week's page focuses on The City Collegian at Seattle Central Community College in Seattle, Wash. I like the overall feel of this particular page because of the photography used. It doesn't have the feel of a college paper, but of a small city paper - especially with the ferry photo in the bottom.
Hierarchy here is done well. There is a clear sense of a lead story and secondary story along with lead photo and secondary photo. I like the little tidbits, labeled "The Bottom Line," that are stripped across the bottom of the page. The multiple Oscars get a little bit repetitive. One suggestion might to be have a single Oscar emerge from the bottom rail and then list the facts in the method you have them, but with a thin or dotted line seperating them rather than using more than one Oscar.
I love how each story has some bit of pullout information that accompanies it - including numbers and other brief bits of information that you don't have to dig into the story to find. They're also placed in locations that are not intrusive to the design.
About the only thing I would really work on is the headlines themselves. The four-year degree headline is a bit too small for the space that it's in. It's a solid head, but I would take it up to three decks and a larger point size - and that might involve reworking the headline some to make it fit. The reason is when you look at the page from a distance, the headline for the four-year degree story is lost next to the large photo and the tuition story on the left. When you look at the overall page in perspective, you can see that the story gets a bit lost with the other headlines. The typical rule of thumb is bring the headline font size down as you're going down the page. The tuition story (if it is your lead) would have the largest headline. Then the four-year degree story and finally the ferry story. It helps guide the reader's eye as they look at the page. Right now, you've got them going straight down the left side of the page and they may not come back up to read the four-year degree story.
I would also reconsider the use of drop caps to start each story. Drop caps are excellent to use in feature presentations. But when you've already got an active page, the use of them can lead to a cluttered look. Sparing use of a drop cap can signal to a reader that a particular story is important. If you decide to keep the drop cap, try reducing it to one per page to get the maximumn impact.
Overall, this is a solid weekly publication that has some excellent photography and the right way about how to integrate that and other non-narrative into the design.
