Design hacks: How to create visuals when it’s not usually your job

Jun 17 2020

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Jun 17, 2020 at 11:30am

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Beth Francesco

[email protected]

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Journalism Institute

In our scroll and skim culture, dynamic visuals can make the difference in whether a reader engages with a story. But not every story can attract a graphic design professional’s time in the newsroom, especially in the continuing pandemic news cycle. If you’re a reporter, editor, social media manager now handling (or who wants to handle) quick-turn graphics, get a head start with our hacks for designing visuals when it’s not usually part of your job. Beth Francesco, the National Press Club Journalism Institute’s senior director, will share best practices, tools you have you have at your disposal from home, and exercises for creating visuals regardless of your hands-on design experience. 

Register now on Zoom for this 45-minute program, which will cover: 

  • Rules of thumb to guide your decisions on fonts, colors, and images
  • Tools you have at your fingertips to make quick work of visuals (social cards, call-outs, basic infographics, and more) on the fly 
  • Exercises to help you develop your design thinking 

The first part of this program will be a presentation by Beth. The second part of the program will be a Q&A with participants.

Before coming to the NPCJI, Beth oversaw student media operations at the University of Texas at Arlington, where she trained students on design, editing, reporting, leadership and marketing. She’s been a freelance writer, editor and consultant for numerous newspaper, magazine and marketing agencies. She started her career as a copy editor/designer at the Corpus Christi (TX) Caller-Times.