Our first football preview section of the year is from the Star-Tribune of Casper, Wyo.
The designer was Lauren Huntington, who’ll tell us all about it:
The design started out as a simple idea that I had about the ‘anatomy of a cowboy.’ When I first pitched it, I talked about creating a Frankenstein’s monster type football player, which is still kind of the backbone of the design. We tossed around the idea of the section theme being based off of “All the right parts” then we settled on “All the right pieces,” which coincided with the design idea and with the season that Wyoming is predicted to have.
With that, the cutout of a magazine, ransom note look came to be. We decided that we wanted this put-together football player to look as sloppy as possible. Almost like it was an idea put together in a sketchbook. I picked four key players to photograph head to toe, printed out those photos, cut out the parts I wanted and taped them together with masking tape …
The problem was the cut out version looked too perfect. I took the advice of [Star-Tribune illustrator and special projects editor] Wesley Watson and tore out the different parts of the players and it turned out exactly the way I wanted. I also decided to add to the cover by cutting the headline letters out of magazines and adding hand-written notes around the ‘super Cowboy,’ as I call it.
Now, let’s check out the insides. Notice how Lauren carried the concept through to page two with a puzzle effect. Page three goes directly into plusses and minuses for the University of Wyoming. The team colors are brown and gold, which explains the color scheme.
Click any page here for a larger view…
But about page two… Lauren writes:
The puzzle illustration turned out better than any of us expected it to. It wasn’t complicated to do, but it was time consuming as I spent most of my work day doing “arts and crafts.”
I purchased a 25-piece children’s puzzle and printed out a the Mountain West Conference photo that I quickly put together in Photoshop to be the same size as the puzzle. I traced the pieces onto the photo, cut out the pieces and glued them to the actual puzzle pieces. I then placed them so they weren’t put all the way together on the scanner. There were quite a few imperfections in my technique as most of the cutout pieces weren’t an exact fit onto the real pieces, but I think the imperfections are what make the illustration really great.
Pages four and five looked at the coaching staff and freshmen recruits.
Page six carried on the “pieces” theme with a cartoon X-ray of the team’s quarterback.
Page seven addressed other playmakers on the team. Page eight focused on the defense.
Page nine looked at the composition of the team itself. Cute detail: The little figures are actually Lego toys…
…which also fits right in with the “pieces” theme.
Pages 10 and 11 look at this year’s opponents.
And page 12 was a full-page ad.
Lauren tells us:
The section really came together wonderfully with the work of the writers Ben Frederickson, Jack Nowlin and Zack Creglow; photographer Dan Cepeda; and the other designer, Caleb West.
Average daily circulation for the Star-Tribune is 24,791.
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Previous 2012 football preview sections here in the blog:
- Saturday, Aug. 18: The Virginian-Pilot‘s annual Fantasy Football page
Do you have a football preview section or page you’d like to share with your fellow blog readers? The email address:
chuckapple [at] cox.net
