Seattle, Wash.
Award of Excellence
News page designer portfolio, Individual, 175,000 and over
Designer: Paul Morgan

This is my third portfolio win in the past five years, but I've almost never gone with the first set of pages that I've picked. To be honest, I still have very little feel for what will do well in the contest. What might have made this entry stand out is it was all Biz pages in a news page field. Beyond that, I have no clue. I had submitted some other stuff (A1s, an inside DT) with some Biz pages. One of our top designers, who was putting together our entry, wondered where all my Biz pages were. Hell, I hadn't even saved most of these pages. Anyway, thankfully she saw the potential.

My approach to Biz design - well any design - is simplicity. I am an extremely harsh editor of my own work. I cut away and cut away until I've got the essence, then I am very judicious when adding more elements. I also try to work as closely as possible with the photo and graphics folks. Many times their input is invaluable and might lead me in a direction I hadn't thought of. It also helps to build relationships there, because when you want to push the envelope a little you're gonna need their cooperation.

And the cooperation of the editors of my section is essential. They really do a great job of getting me what I ask for (graphics, illos, pics, etc). Plus, they give me great feedback.

Finally, on five of these six layouts I wrote the headlines. That's not SOP here: Usually the desk writes them. I ALWAYS read my stories and always try to come up with headline ideas. If I can't write a headline for the story - breaking down the idea to its basics - then how in the world am I supposed to design an effective package? — Paul Morgan