I came into Redhead at the beginning of summer with a newspaper background and newspaper experience. Structure, templates, limited font choices and a very simplistic color palette.
Here, that's far from the case. There are no rules.
It's like giving a kid a coloring book and pencil and telling him or her to stay in the lines, then giving that same kid a canvas and a 64-pack of crayons. It seems like it should be an easy transition, but it was far from it.
What do you make?
I found myself struggling with the freedom at first, unsure of where the boundaries were and how to adapt to the style of Redhead. I wanted to break out the style I was forced into for two years and find my own. Six months later, I'm still sometimes uncomfortable with finding what looks righti, but I'm happy to take on the challenge.
Working here has opened my mind back up to fun and colors and fonts and all the things that make design so exciting. I'm not stuck making news pages anymore, instead I'm helping with calendars and invitations and logo ideas. We bounce thoughts back and forth and tape ideas all over the walls and stare at them until our eyes bleed. At the paper, the quick day-to-day tournaround sometimes didn't give me enough time to rethink my choices.
And I've learned to work with clients and printers and see what happens after the design is finished. The process is exhausting, but seeing the product is equally rewarding.
While I haven't completely found my groove yet, working with people who have is inspiring.
So cheers to to the people who gave me a canvas and the crayons. I'm proud to be a (blonde) Redhead.
Colleen
new designer and journalism senior at MSU
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