Feature
Designing Teens
Students take an active role in laying out an Oregon paper's youth section
By Edith Decker
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Katie Peckham, a senior at Grants Pass High School, works on the Under 21 page at the Grants Pass (Ore.) Daily Courier.
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The Grants Pass (Ore.) Daily Courier became one of the state's first small newspapers to begin a teen page 18 years ago. From the beginning, we've used a teen to lay out the weekly page.
More than a decade ago, as the newspaper switched from old-style paste-up to computer pagination, the Under 21 page was one of the first to be put on the new system. Turns out the teens knew the QuarkXpress programs better than most in the newsroom.
Here's how we work it out: We have one teen come in every week after school. Before she arrives, we've put all the elements on a master page off to the side. The teen and I discuss some possibilities for design. Then the teen works on the page at our universal desk while I work on other stuff. I check in off and on and, of course, if there's a problem.
When she thinks she's "done," we sit down together and work out any problems until we're both happy with the final result. This way, she can learn each week and get better. Often, our layout teens also work on the high school paper or yearbook, so this help gives them something to take back to the high school staff as well. The page then goes through the usual checking process.
While it can take time to train the teens, they usually stay with it for a year or more and eventually require little assistance. We pay them $20 a week for their work – no raise in 18 years and never one complaint!
To find our layout teen when we lose one to graduation, we put a brief about the opening on the page. All those who call are invited to come in to try their hand at a test. I place typical elements from past pages on a fresh master for each student, give some tips on using Quark and let them have at it.
This hands-on application method, along with information from a resume, has been quite successful. We typically have six to eight candidates, so the process is time-consuming – and I’m sure larger-circulation papers would have to figure out a method to bring in only the top candidates for such a test.
Not only has having a layout teen been a benefit to us in the short run by making the page even more teen-produced, but several of our teens also have gone to design, art or Web design programs after graduation. In two cases, we've hired these Under 21 "grads" in the ad department as full-time designers.
Edith Decker is youth page editor at the Grants Pass (Ore.) Daily Courier. She can be reached at news06@thedailycourier.com .
