More Bargains at the Mall

Shopping malls are great places to get ideas for designs, fonts, headlines, subheads, folios, and even stories. Trips to two malls with two yearbook advisers and staff members yielded plenty of ideas for yearbooks. The ideas can be found in the Spring 2004 issue of Idea File, Volume 14, Issue 3. However, there were too many good ideas to fit in the printed issue. Here are additional images from the two trips with ideas that you may find useful.

Headlines and fonts

Great use of design around the headlines and subheads to attract shoppers on these signs from Independence Center, Independence, Mo., and Mission Center Mall, Mission, Kan. This was another way Independence Center continued its star theme that was in use around the mall.

Was Ritz Camera getting its point across, wondered Amanda Hornick, yearbook editor at Blue Springs South High School, Blue Springs, Mo. First, the subhead was brighter than the company name. Which words did the company want people to remember? Second, she said the two colors of red on the logo were distracting to her. These design questions need to be considered when working on headline treatments.

The 5-7-9 Shop has a young, modern font to match its young, modern clothing line for its female teen audience.

Design

You can drop off your film at the one-hour photo at the back of this store and shop at the mall while you wait. How do you know there is a one-hour photo at the back of the store? The neon line leads your eye into the store past the displays to the sign over the one-hour counter.

You probably have seen a spread or two designed as an old-fashioned scrapbook, with corner photo holders to frame images. Here, the photos are grouped on a metal board and are held up by magnets that look like donuts. What other elements outside of books can be adapted to frame images in yearbooks?

Here is another example of looking at the same things in another way. The white purse with the red lips handle is fun, and gives the impression that it wants you to open it and feed it. It attracts enough attention that you almost do not notice the pink and white purse in the bottom left corner of the photo that wants to be a ball.

A cluttered turnoff or a comfortable zone? This store has less lighting, with the clothes just lying on the displays for teens to rummage through, like some teen bedrooms. This store knows its audience and is aimed at them. The right story might benefit from such a design treatment, and all stories need to be aimed at their audiences.

Present your yearbook in a sleeve or a box, with a sticker on the front. That is, if the money is in your budget, said Becky Tate, adviser at Shawnee Mission North High School, Overland Park, Kan.

A trip to the mall may turn up bad design ideas, which also is a learning experience. So for inspiration, an education and exercise you cannot get thumbing through a magazine, a walk at the local mall may be in order.

Thanks to Becky Tate, adviser at Shawnee Mission North High School, Overland Park, Kan.; Cindy Wood, adviser at Blue Springs South High School, Blue Springs, Mo.; and two Blue Springs South staff members, Amanda Hornick, editor, and Mary Ellen Poff, sports editor, who took the time to go mall-walking.