America 250 Feature

This newspaper cover for the Morganton News Herald was somewhat difficult to create. I had been given the copy and the photo of Thomas Burke, as well as our branding for the America 250 series of articles, but a centerpiece feature needed a little more creativity. The space was also somewhat difficult due to the mailing label and two strip ads on the page making for a very shallow rectangular area. I hit upon the idea of using a stock picture of an American flag in the background, with a screen overlay on the right to create a space for good legibility of the text. The 250-brand kicker remained above the package, but not the width, in order to allow for some white space around the package and the blurb placed within the copy. For the headline, I shortened it to "Revolutionary Origins," with the second word somewhat larger for both balance and to emphasize that this is a story about history, and placed the deckhead below in two lines due to its question/answer format. A drop cap helped maintain the flow for the reader as an entry point to the article. The photo of the subject of the article I made large enough to fill about half of the depth, and to create the illusion of it being a historical painting one might see in a gallery, added a stock art gilded frame and underneath a placard with the information about the man in question. Source credits were tucked inside the placard and at the bottom of the American flag frame to keep them unobtrusive but visible. The package was well received and copied to run on the cover of two other local newspapers.