Practicing what I preach

After having gone on numerous rants about how awesome European news design is and having confirmed my love by actually visiting Europe this summer (and therefor seeing these papers in my hands), I have finally made the plunge.

After seeing the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s redesign this summer, I dropped all hesitation. I absolutely loved the look and if one mainstream American newspaper could pull this great look off, I had to try it.

As the new managing editor of The Daily Eastern News, I was able to accomplish, with the help of my advisers and faithful Editor in Chief, a (successful) total redesign of the paper.

Most of the touches are entirely inspired by the international (or modernist or swiss or whatever you want to call it) style most papers around the world now adhere to.

Here is today’s front page.

This page was entirely designed by one of our nightly copy editors/designers. She has minimal experience and yet she was completely capable of producing a pleasant front page with little creative effort.

The redesign, introduced in August, is entirely grid-based. Front page sections are 16 columns and inside pages are 15. This ultimately amounts to 5 columns of text. The additional column on the front sections is in order to allow a wider rail or grid-based white space. Unfortunately, this formula was impossible to impose on inside pages with designers who have possibly never touched Indesign.

Filed under: Editoral, Graphic, My Work, Newspapers, Print, School, Newspapers, Personal, Print, Projects, School, Tabloid

Tribune tactics create heated discussion

Over at the Charles Apple Blog, a report that Apple put up about some scary Tribune production tactics has caused a huge stir. Seventy-seven comments and counting, this is clearly an issue no one should miss.
My take: I don’t find the templated modules to be such a problem provided they are done in a tasteful manner. They need to fix the reported problems that don’t allow local copy editors to change the text within said modules. For inside pages, this is a fairly streamlined way of saving the company money and only hurting the readers when it is done poorly. That said, I am not comfortable with where this is going. If section fronts and styles are being overtaken by the “mother ship,” then we have a serious problem. That concept would effectively make newspapers pointless. The paper may as well shrink down to a one-section local.

Filed under: Newspapers, Print, State of the Industry

Adopt-a-multimedia journalist part 2

This weblog’s existence can be credited to Bryan Murley, my Multimedia Journalism professor at Eastern Illinois University. I say this because a weblog is a requirement of that class. As such, we (the students of the class) have a few requirements for our blogs. One of which is a final project entitled “Adopt-a-multimedia Journalism” where we choose a journalist in the field that is currently creating new media work (videos, Flash, Soundslides, etc.) and then we have to write a critique of their work. That said, I have chosen Amanda Cox of the New York Times and her work is amazing, so there will be inspirational value within. Avoid or flock to these posts as you see fit.

Filed under: Adopt-a-multimedia Journalist, General, Inspiration, Misc., Newspapers, School, Web

Fame and Fortune

Earlier this morning I was mentioned on the Charles Apple blog. Charles must be an early riser because I was unaware of this until 9:30 a.m. when my Communications Law professor, Dr. James Tidwell, congratulated me. So caught off guard, I had no idea what he was talking about until I did my daily visit to Mr. Apple’s blog. Since then I’ve received a number of congratulatory words from both students and professors.
To clear things up: Charles Apple asked for submissions for this post. He did not choose me, nor did I get nominated for something. He essentially offered free advertising and myself and 30 others took him up on the offer. Not to diminish the awesomeness of Charles’ mention, though, because the publicity for a Midwestern college student such as myself is extremely helpful.

The second reason for this post (the fortune part) is that I was offered and officially accepted the job of Managing Editor of The Daily Eastern News (Eastern Illinois’ student newspaper). I will take the position in the Fall under editor in chief Tyler Angelo.

Note: The Charles Apple post (probably) didn’t influence Tyler’s choice and yes, my ego is as the picture shows.

Filed under: Misc., My Work, School, Web

Adopt-a-multimedia journalist

This weblog’s existence can be credited to Bryan Murley, my Multimedia Journalism professor at Eastern Illinois University. I say this because a weblog is a requirement of that class. As such, we (the students of the class) have a few requirements for our blogs. One of which is a final project entitled “Adopt-a-multimedia Journalism” where we choose a journalist in the field that is currently creating new media work (videos, Flash, Soundslides, etc.) and then we have to write a critique of their work. That said, I have chosen Amanda Cox of the New York Times and her work is amazing, so there will be inspirational value within. Avoid or flock to these posts as you see fit.

Click the image for the actual piece.

Filed under: Adopt-a-multimedia Journalist, Graphic, Inspiration, Newspapers, School, Web, Web Design, Adopt-a-multimedia Journalist, Assignments, Beauty, Class, Graphics, Inspire, Interactives, Personal, School, Web

Monitor introduces Sunday ‘Print Edition Exclusives’

Well, at least someone is trying something different. Hopefully the Monitor publishes the results of this experiment. My guess: No one will care.

Beginning this Sunday, we are going to begin reversing that trend a bit. From now on, each Sunday edition of The Monitor will prominently feature one or more “Print Edition Exclusive” stories that are of major impact, importance and interest to Valley readers.

via Monitor introduces Sunday ‘Print Edition Exclusives’ | monitor, print, edition – Now – TheMonitor.com.

Filed under: Newspapers, Print, State of the Industry, Web, Experimentation, Newspapers, Print, Web

Inspiration of the moment #1

I believe this blog is both one part news industry and one part graphic design. I find that most graphic design blogs do not cover news design and news design blogs do not cover the outside world of traditional graphic design.

With these blog posts, I hope to inspire both sides of the design community. There will be news pages with tons of beautifully executed text, and in the next post I may feature a vector line art drawing with nothing but a title off in the expansive white space. Whatever I find inspires me. I will then describe why I like the work so much. The work may not be current — in fact, it may be from years ago — but it will be nonetheless inspirational.

Here’s the first:

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Why is this inspirational?

This inside spread from Excelsior, a mexican newspaper, blows me away everytime I see it. There is so much liveliness to the page and yet it follows an extremely rigid grid. The designer knew how to break to grid (the smoking pipe), and make it stand out.

I have to admit that I really don’t know what the page is about, so much of the context is lost on me. However, it can be assumed that the information within all of those break out boxes and that lead in isn’t garbage. Using that assumption, this is a knock out page. Style, grace, grid. Fantastic.

It’s very European in its use of white space (thick pieces of white and gray rather than a fluid mix that most American designers abide by), and admittedly I have a weakness for that modernist look. What I admire most about this look is its elegance and ability to look sophisticated while maintaining the the beauty and grace that lots of white space gives off. Its a nearly perfect meld. The story must be over 1000 words and there are plenty of additional pieces of information given. Who isn’t satisfied by that concept?

My final point about this design: What I admire most about this style is how grid-centric it is. And while most American designers are still in their honeymoon with post modernism, news design needs grids. Not only does it create an almost automatic beauty, but it saves ubelievable amounts of time. A copy editor could easily fill in a template that adheres to a strict grid. The difference between this and American pages is that the generic pages set up by the swedish, modernist design philosophy look completely coherent with the rest of the paper. This is a struggle American newspapers have faced since they have existed. USA today is about the only design that doesn’t have this problem.

If you are the author of this page, please contact me so I can give proper credit.

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Other inspiration sources

• FFFOUND!
• Design You Trust
  Similar to delicious, but only for images and oriented toward designers. Registration and approval required in order to create an extremely well moderated dose of inspiration.
• Abduzeedo
  Daily updates on great pieces of design inspiration
• Newseum
  A site dedicated to news design. Based on a real museum located in Washington D.C., the Newseum‘s goal is to archive news pages throughout the ages. The inspiration comes from their daily feed on daily newspapers from around the world who upload their pages to the site.
• News Page Designer
• Visual Editors
  Both sites allow users to upload their own news and editorial design portfolios, creating communities of critique and idea exchange.

Filed under: Graphic, Inspiration, Newspapers, Beauty, Inspire, Newspapers

Great site worth looking at (edit)

(Edit: From my understanding, the difference between Blurb and Lulu is their focus. Blurb mostly focuses on photography and Lulu focuses mostly on text-based books. They can both do either, though.)

Blurb is an on-demand self-publishing tool and website. Similar to others, but with the exception of its great desktop program available.

I’ve used Lulu to create a book of my political cartoons, but what bothered me, as a designer, was the lack of layout functionality. There was no real way to move text or images around as I saw fit. Blurb’s Booksmart appears to allow that. With its slick and intuitive interface, your mom would even feel at home here.

I really think this is a service worth using and supporting. If you’re applying for a job or just want a professional print of your portfolio, this seems to be perfect. I’d hate to see a start up with this much effort behind it lose out to something else just because it was there first.

Filed under: Web

Scary and sad

From the Charles Apple blog; it appears as though Denver’s number two paper, the Rocky Mountain News, is closing its doors after nearly 150 years. I don’t think I need to say anything about the weight this event holds, because its exceedingly evident.
While I don’t live in Denver or anywhere near their circulation, I can say that they will be missed.

Below, I’ve attached a three part interview the Rocky Mountain News executive editor John Temple did with John Caldara. This interview was done pre-mortem, but basically explains the nuts and bolts of why the paper (might have) folded.

Filed under: Newspapers, State of the Industry

World’s Best

The Society for News Design has announced their annual newspaper design award-winners, and while the American newspapers took home the most awards, not a single U.S. paper took home world’s best (which probably just means the U.S. papers could afford to submit more pages).

That honor went to five foreign newspapers, once again showing the weakening status of American news design. Why we don’t even have one copy-cat of that rich european style here in the states makes me wonder.

Well, anyway, I’ll be doing a once-over of my thoughts on the winners in the coming days, so stay tuned.

In the meantime, check out this slideshow of the winners.

Filed under: Newspapers

Recession guide

From Sajeev’s newspaper designing, the Chicago Tribune has been publishing a series of great recession-based articles. What caught my eye, however, was the great photo illustrations.
Particularly, this one:

On that note, I’d just like to say that I am at a point where I think the new Trib design beats the old. I had started out really disliking it, mostly due to the first few issues going way overboard on the flashy, sensational packages. Meanwhile my favorite part of the old design was how clean and unsensational it was — one of the few understated U.S. papers around. However, they’ve toned down their use of sans headlines and started using more of that egyptian type.

That said, the new nameplate is still god awful. If this wasn’t the Tribune, we’d be telling them to stop going overboard on the photoshop (bevel, stroke, drop shadow all in one!).

Ick.

Filed under: Newspapers, Newspapers, Print

The Trib goes tab (updated)

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Update: How they’re handling the work load

Charles Apple profiles the 4 new Trib designers

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Round up

• The Tribune’s letter to its readers
• SND talks to Steve Cavindish
• Editor and Publisher gives a review
• A couple of videos about the new format
• Ron Reason interviews the Trib’s Associate Editor
• The business benefits of the new format
• Charles Apple’s take

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My Thoughts

I like the new attitude the Chicago Tribune has started taking on. This is design with purpose. The reviews seem positive and the paper is giving readers what they want. I’m still a bit puzzled how they are handling this with recent staff cuts, but that’s their issue and not mine. So far, so good.

Unfortunately, this  addresses half of the Trib’s problems. Their website is in a severe need of an update. Videos are weak, navigation is a struggle, and outside content is nearly non-existent. Contrast this to the attitude of the New York Times who have headed directly into the online fray.

As much as I love print design (seriously, this industry downturn has produced so much redesign crack that I’m considering rehab), this reformatting is only a temporary bandage on a gaping wound. I’ll save the details for a future post, but newspapers should be taking over the online space, not sitting on the sidelines. We have companies with millions of dollars — for now, anyway — losing millions of visitors to sites like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and even The Huffington Post. These sites prove that people still like reading the news — they just don’t take it in the same way.

So, great job, Chicago: You have made your print product more relevant. Now take this attitude to the web.

Filed under: Newspapers, Newspapers, Print, Tabloid, Web