An overdue shout-out to shapers of blank pages

There’s a lot that goes into making the paper you pick up
every day. We’re more than just filler that surrounds the
Sudoku and crossword puzzle. There’s a team of countless
interns, contributors, staff and editors that put together this
paper, and most of them never get any recognition.

In fact, you may not be aware that the jobs some of them do even
exist.

While you marvel at the great writing in a story, stare in awe
at an amazing photograph or chuckle at a clever headline, you
probably never look at a page and exclaim, “Oh, my! What a
modular, well-balanced design!”

Such is the fate of page designers, and if you didn’t even
know of them, I don’t blame you. I didn’t either until
I happened to wander into the darkest, stuffiest corner of the
office at 118 Kerckhoff Hall where a blank page on a screen changed
my life.

There it was, waiting for someone to fill its nothingness, to
take it from being a blank page to being the front page. And just
like that, my aspirations to become a writer vanished, and I began
my four-year long stay in the design department at the Daily
Bruin.

The idea of not only knowing tomorrow’s news but also of
having the power to create the pages that would be seen by
thousands of people was too alluring to resist.

So here I am today, having designed hundreds of pages ““
some good, some bad, all modular ““ and I am asking for some
recognition. Not that I’m complaining. If it weren’t
for that blank page, I may have spent my years here at UCLA with no
real passion and a lot of wasted time.

I wouldn’t have my hate of Comic Sans and anyone who uses
it; I would not know there are 12 points in a pica and six picas in
an inch; I never would have looked at the sports, news or viewpoint
sections and would probably not know half of the things I know now
(including too much about UCLA sports, the undergraduate student
government election process and Lara Loewenstein’s sex
life).

It takes time for everyone to learn how to do something well,
and I have spent the last four years learning that the size of
every headline, the dominance of every photo and the placement of
every hairline matter.

So now, to give credit where it’s never been given before:
Vicky Wang, Melissa Tran, Jennifer Lee, Rashi Birla, Ken Robinson,
Joanna Quach, Kristy Hwang, Melanie Wong, Stephanie White, Ellie
Bybee, Elise Swanson, Laura Gorman, Joyce Lin, Megan Volger, Lori
Faber, Adam Luxenberg, and Serena Fu. Thank you for making the
paper as beautiful as it is. I always appreciate the modularity of
your designs and now, hopefully, everyone else will, too.

Dracolakis will be pursuing a career as a page designer
until she is inspired by the next metaphorical blank page.