Publication Roles:

Typesetter:

• Was responsible for ensuring that all the content made it into each issue of the newspaper.

• Communicated with the editor/owner if there was too little or too much content left to fill each edition.

• Adhered to aesthetic guidelines and ensured every issue remained consistent with the newspaper's handcrafted and local brand.

• Ensured a balanced layout for each page, and that stories and other featured content were visually spaced between one another by advertisements or other spacing tools.

Producer:

• Reformatted all of the written materials for each issue of the newspaper, changing them from appearing as a bunch of differently formatted word documents into a publishable collection of stories using a single format style used by the newspaper.

• Scanned over the content for any misspellings or grammatical mistakes that the editor or the author might have overlooked.

Contributor:

• Occasionally contributed a short series of informative overviews of the value of various livestock species for the publication’s rural audience.

Full Discription:

As the typesetter I was responsible for ensuring that all the content made it into each issue of the newspaper, and communicated with the editor/owner if there was too little or too much content left to fill each edition. Despite whether these problems arose or not, I still ensured a balanced layout for each page, and that stories and other featured content were visually spaced between one another by advertisements or other spacing tools, and not clustered onto one section of the page.

Something that was more challenging was the inconsistent aspects of the newspaper’s layout guidelines. Some sections of the Observer would largely remain consistent from issue to issue, such as the placement for the Sheriff’s Corner; a section of the newspaper where the Skamania County Sheriff would write to the general public on a variety of subjects. While other sections of the newspaper were expected to change, sometimes dramatically, every issue with the intention of making every release of the publication feel refreshing to read and unique. This meant that at no point was I really able to develop a template that I could just copy paste content into and then spit out an issue of the newspaper that was ready to print. I needed to follow strict guidelines to remain aesthetically consistent with the newspaper’s brand, but that brand also demanded that every published product needed to feel handcrafted and local, not something that was made by a larger publication.

In addition to ensuring layout style consistency for pages as a whole, I was also responsible for reformatting all of the written materials sent to me for each issue of the newspaper. I changed them from appearing as a bunch of differently formatted word documents into a publishable collection of stories using a single format style used by the newspaper; paragraph and line spacing, indentation, title and attribution placement etc. While reformatting, I would also briefly scan over the content to double check for any misspellings or grammatical mistakes that the editor or the author might have overlooked to ensure a better product for our subscribers.

Note: All content within screenshots reflect the work of the entire team (Typesetting, Editor, Contributors, etc).