With SND 45 in the books, board member Martina Ibáñez-Baldor set out to ask this year’s winners about their portfolios and tips for the rest of us. Stephanie Hays, designer at the Washington Post, won a Silver print award for individual portfolio in the SND 45 print competition.
What is your current job title, and how long have you been in that role?
I’m a designer at The Washington Post and I’ve been working here since March of 2022.
What do you love about designing for print?
I love the structure and constraints of a print page. Having a set amount of space to work with really makes you focus on what’s the most important for the story, and what deserves the most visual weight.
I also really enjoy how you can play with proportion and scale on a page, in a way that is so different than online. When you’re seeing 6 photos at once, the size of each one of them becomes really important, and you have to work to make sure that one isn’t overshadowing the rest. Plus, the visual impact of just how large a broadsheet newspaper page is (especially when it’s a doubletruck) is always really cool, especially when you can go large on a photo or illustration or typography.
Which of these project was the most challenging?
The “Two children, many bullets” story was the most difficult. The subject matter was devastating. When I read the story the first time, I had to stop and take a break in the middle because reading what happened to two specific children in school shootings was unbelievably sad and distressing.
Finding a way to balance the emotional weight of the story, along with the technical details and graphics was a challenge and required a lot of collaboration with the graphics team on size and scale.
Plus, the timeline for working on this was pretty short. The page was assembled within a few days before the story went to print, so we were working really fast and had to produce a lot of different page iterations in a short period of time to get to the final piece.
What do you feel is the most important part of your design process?
Reading a draft of the story, if there’s one available! Even if a draft hasn’t been written yet, I find knowing a potential headline, or just a short description of what the story will be about to be helpful. Often reporters will use very visual words and phrases to describe certain things about the piece. Then you can riff off those words to help generate more visual ideas or themes you can use in the design, and you know that it will really relate back to what’s already been written.
And, of course, it’s always helpful to know the pacing, quotes and details of the story.
What is your favorite piece in your portfolio from this year?
I’ve gotten to work on our photos of the year section for the past two years and I love it! It’s a delight to work with the photo team each year and see some of the most amazing photography. Listening to the photo editors explain their picks always gives me insight into their thoughtful process. And photo spreads are some of my favorite kinds of print projects, so it’s always a fun challenge to make the section feel harmonious, elegant and inviting.
What advice would you give to designers who are looking to improve their portfolios?
Two different things!
- Don’t be afraid to pitch something that seems too “out there”. Some of the most fun I’ve had at work is when I pitched projects or themes that seemed like they would be, well, difficult to put together. Those usually end up being great portfolio pieces, because you can talk about how you helped guide the story structure, or assembled a photoshoot, or commissioned a complicated illustration. It shows that you have ambition and the follow through to make good ideas happen.
- Spend some concentrated time focusing on the design details. One of the biggest things that I learned at my first job was to really hone in on alignment, grid structure, hierarchy and white space! Even if non-designers can’t tell exactly what makes a page clean and cohesive, the reason is usually a combo of those four things. They are what will elevate a great idea into a fantastic layout and package. And trust me, other designers will definitely notice and appreciate when the basics are done right.