Sometimes, you just have to sell the paper

The Savannah Morning News' front page incorporates two skyboxes above the flag in every issue. The skyboxes are a way for the designers to have a little creative freedom and, of course, to better advertise the paper. Statistics have indicated that a woman's face in the skybox is a sure-fire way to sell the paper. It kind of goes along with the stats we were given in my old magazine editing class and from ASME: One face sells better than two, and women's 2/3 body shots sell well, too. At the paper, sometimes we don't have the stories that warrant decent skyboxes; sometimes we have to think of something else; and sometimes we have to design with something we don't like. Yesterday was one of those nights.

The story I was to conceptualize and sell was a local column all about choosing the best bikini bottom to fit someone's body type. See where I'm going with this? The art for the column included three shots of women's hips, all clad in bikini bottoms. This is what I came up with:



I wasn't happy about it, but given the statistics and options, I was stuck. I sent a screen shot of the page to my editor, and she had a conversation with the metro editor about the last pair of bottoms. They both decided that they looked too much like underwear, so I scrapped them and redesigned.



I like my font size better on the second one, but I still had to put women's torsos on my 1A. But then I remember that I am still a part of a business. I still have to help sell the paper, and doing so means I have a job.