   Designing With Reason: The Blog | |||
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This is the personal blog of Chicago-based design consultant / educator / newspaper reader Ron Reason. (To see what I looked like with hair a few (ahem) years ago, view my columnist logo under the "Listen With Reason" archives!) To learn more about revised terms for publication critiques, click here. Articles index. Home page: www.ronreason.com |
News producers - the next generation July 12, 2007: Congratulations to the Poynter Summer Fellows of 2007, who graduated this week after six weeks of challenging journalism boot camp! You can visit their work here (link goes to page of mostly online news stories that I helped coach as visiting faculty several weeks ago, but you can head from there to the fellows' bios, more work, personal recollections of the program, and more). Particularly impressive was the evolution of the program since I directed it in the late '90s - it now is a fully integrated and state of the art word-visual-tech operation (photo above shows the converged classroom/media lab designed by Kenny Irby and his stellar colleagues at Poynter). Though I have been involved with the program for years, it is always great to look "under the hood" and see what makes the current engine run. As always with Poynter, the story comes first, and solid news value, accuracy, thoroughness and ethics rule the day. Storyboard mockups for text, photo, audio, infographics, video and more can be seen here. Observation: one faculty colleague suggested it's time to retire the word "journalist" because of the rapid evolution of skill sets involved in today's news production, as text and visuals are joined by audio, video and multi-platform distribution management. I might also suggest it's time to look beyond the title "designer," to something like "information producer" or "multimedia architect," to describe how multifaceted these jobs have become. Just a thought. Finally, looking for hard-working, talented hires? Check at the Poynter links to see if any of this year's crop is still available - they go quick! (Photos of the fun-filled final days of the program can be seen here.)
Time of refocus, realignment for redesigns May 30, 2007: During a recent week of teaching at The Poynter Institute, I was asked what I thought has been the biggest change in the redesign culture in the chaotic business climate of 2007. Without a doubt, I'd have to say this: the day of the traditional redesign of mainstream dailies (changing fonts-color-logo-grid, perhaps with a smattering of content change) has passed - at least so long as its primary goal is the "recapture of lost youth readers," or stemming the tide of circulation losses. That's not to say there hasn't been validity in past redesign projects - factors such as color upgrades, change in format and content overhauls all have warranted creating new looks. There's just so little evidence, if any really, that the redesign process itself has brought young readers back to print, or done much to stem the departure of traditional readers or advertisers. My own focus now lies particularly with four main areas of redesign: launch or relaunch of new publications; trade or niche publications, including the ethnic/spiritual press; change in size or format; and community newspaper groups, all of whom have specific, valid reasons for rethinking their mission and creating new designs. You can read more of my thoughts on the topic in this updated version of my Q&A about the redesign process.
A love letter from the past Jan 10, 2007: Being a pack-rat has few advantages, but one is the occasional chuckle you get on cleaning day when you run across a blast from the past. Today I unearthed this gem of a rejection letter from Sheila Wolfe of the Chicago Tribune, circa 1987. Sheila was a widely known recruitment director for the paper, of a breed that was rather notorious at the time. Often difficult to book time with, and often, VERY direct in their kiss-off letters: Don’t call us, we’ll call you. (Don’t even get me started about Millie Quan of The Seattle Times, whose rejection letters essentially bragged: “as everyone knows, Seattle is the most liveable place on the planet according to (fill in this year’s magazine fluff piece about liveable cities), and as such, everyone wants to work here so even if you had any talent, there’s no room for you - HAHA!” Hey, biz was booming for newspapers - good times!) But, I digress. Back to Sheila, bless her heart: Many at Trib Tower today must take comfort in her assuredness that the paper “is going to be around for a long time,” and I definitely appreciate her adding “and so are you”! (More worrisome might have been her prediction that computers would hasten the demise of designers.) No, I never got hired by the Tribune copy desk, instead, sticking it out at the St. Pete Times for 10 years, eventually being lured over to Poynter for five, and blessedly finding a footing in consulting. As a result, I did end up redesigning one of the Trib’s properties (the Orlando Sentinel), briefly owning a bit of Trib stock (bah!), and finding myself today an informed and amused reader of the paper’s Red Eye edition, on occasion. The lesson to those of you in the job market: Save those rejection letters! And don’t take anything personally - some jobs just may not be a good fit - at the time you apply, or maybe ever.
Graphic designer, or nightclub superstar? Nov. 5, 2006: If you live in San Francisco or Los Angeles, you may want to check out over the next few weekends the Cut & Paste digital design competition sponsored by Adobe, Wacom, Puma and others. It’s already hit NYC (image above), and this past weekend, Chicago, where I ventured to Crobar nightclub for the most unusual thing I’ve seen there since a performance by a surly and out-of-it RuPaul. Imagine a battle of the bands, but with ... graphic designers. No editorial types, but rather, design studio and advertising staff. Competitors were mostly male and tended to be very young (one seemed not to quite grasp the concept of “oxymoron” when challenged to create a design on that topic), and judging seemed to favor technical execution over strength of concept, but no matter. It was still a weird and mostly interesting experience to see four designers at a time create visual solutions under a deadline, each step of their work (including an tendency in many cases to over-design) visible on overhead screens. I also enjoyed sizing up the crowd’s fashions and smarty-glasses. Made me grateful I don’t have ear-splitting techno, hiphop and rap music blaring when I visit newsrooms to do my design work. Final observation: I know more than a handful of newspaper designers who would have kicked ass in this competition! Maybe SND should bring this contest to Boston next year? (Note: the Cut & Paste web site was not updated with winners’ designs at time of this posting, but you might check back later.) 
Doing good and learning lots! Sept. 25, 2006: Would you give up a perfectly nice autumn Saturday to learn more about thinking critically about news design and editing, and making your newspaper better for readers? Three dozen professionals and a few students from four states (shown above) did just that for my special one-day workshop, “Designing for a Difference,” on Sept. 23 at Columbia College Chicago, which generously donated space. More than $3,000 was raised for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society - all proceeds went directly to the charity, as part of my fundraising efforts via a training program for the Chicago Marathon. Special thanks to those participants, as well as a stellar guest faculty: Eric White of the Sun-Times, Chris Courtney from Red Eye, Jennifer George-Palilonis from Ball State, and Elio Leturia and Betsy Edgerton of Columbia. Evaluations were effusive about the value of the program. (OK, I kept the cost at just $95 to make it as affordable as possible, but still!) Said Joe Greco, Creative Director of the Post-Tribune (which also sent several other staffers): “I loved the reinforcement of using words to articulate ideas about presentation and building relationships.” If you’d like to sample some of the handouts from the day, please visit this special web page where you can download the PDFs.
A footnote about the marathon: in addition to the money raised from this workshop, various friends, professional acquaintances, and newspaper companies ponied up an additional $3,000 toward my fundraising efforts, for a grand tally of nearly $11,500 to fight leukemia and blood-related cancers! In all, the Chicago chapter of Team in Training (with whom I am running and fundraising) has raised more than $800,000 to date for this charity. Special thanks to anyone reading who contributed funds or just listened to me whine about shin splints and knee pain for nine months. Wish me luck on Oct. 22, my first marathon! If you read this and decide to join Team in Training for an upcoming marathon, half marathon, bike event or triathlon, I will donate $100 to kick-start your efforts. Just let me know!
Sprockets at the NYT: Nostalgic for film ... August 14, 2006: Who doesn't love the beautifully edited and presented New York Times? I learn a lot about the world and also, how to craft a great newspaper, every time I read it. So it made me wonder the other day when I opened to an inside page with a new recurring text-and-photo feature, and saw this technique, embellishing two photos with a border replicating the sprockets of a roll of Kodak film. It made me wonder: What kind of effect is this trying to create? Do any newspapers really use film anymore? I recall learning this technique years ago in a magazine layout class - the intention (as I recall) was to sort of signify "this is a really special photo layout" (and if you ever got to use it, in a class or on the job, you knew you were getting assigned the fun stuff!). I'm not sure what made it special, now that I think about it, other than the decoration - couldn't the reader assume that the photos were taken with film? But I was curious enough to ask my friend Kenny Irby, legendary photojournalism educator, what he thought of the technique. "There are no, as in zero, major American daily newspapers using film for daily production. The world of photojournalism is a digital world. Albeit, from time to time you may see the decorative technique used to elicit nostalgic effect. Indeed, it is a treatment that has run its course, as film in still or full motion has seen it glory days." So there you go! We concluded that this may be the photographic equivalent of using typewriter fonts in a page layout (used for many years to create a "literary" mood, say, for stories about authors or such). In sum, recalls my longstanding philosophy of, "if it doesn't add anything to the storytelling, remove it." Just my two cents' worth for the day!
The consulting life: When Hollywood comes to the newsroom! August 14, 2006: Of course, every consultant loves his visits to all clients, but these times are especially fun when, after a grueling day of newsroom training, the publisher gives you a sneek preview of his latest Hollywood blockbuster. Such was the case more than a year ago at the Polish Daily News (Nowy Dziennik) in New York City, when publisher Adam Wierzbianski offered to show me and Kelly Frankeny (who assisted me on his redesign) a rough cut of the movie made from his screenplay. It had just arrived on DVD that morning from Hollywood, where the producers had suggested some changes. That movie, "The Oh in Ohio," stars Parker Posey, Danny Devito, and a wacky Liza Minelli (is that redundant?), and has just been released nationwide! Congrats to Adam! I don't have a photo of Adam or Parker, but I do have a photo of the Yorkshire terrier who was one of the newsroom's mascots (the other being a crazy but brilliant homeless man who lived in the basement and often attended my training sessions, sometimes contributing insightful observations about the future of newspapers!). Also posted here are a photo of me and the Pope, and Kelly with a Polish artifact we admired, during one of our visits to the newsroom. Yes, I love my job!
Yoda-riffic musings on news design and life! August 9, 2006: This initial entry of my new blog is dedicated to Yoda, whose famous quote has inspired me in a number of endeavors this year. "Do, or do not. There is no 'try.' " So true! Words that I took to heart when contemplating things such as ... Whether to revitalize my web publishing with this blog. Whether to sign up to train for the Chicago Marathon to raise funds for a charity. Whether to round up some talented friends to put on two design workshops this fall in Chicago and NYC. You can sit around and hope something will happen to you, or, you can try to make it happen! I hope this crazy line of thinking might inspire a few of you to sign on for the workshops, even if your bosses might not fork over the $95 to register. (Hey, I know, I've heard ... times are tough!) Two months ago I surveyed a few newsroom leaders in the Midwest, to gauge whether area newsrooms even had training budgets anymore. The results were not encouraging :( and in fact, put my plans on hold for a while. Finally I thought, you know what, I can only put it out there and hope for the best. If it's worthwhile, and if people want to believe in newspapers, and themselves, and put out smarter publications, we'll at least get enough to fill a small conference room! By the way, the sessions are planned to be relatively intimate - I am hoping for minimum of 15 and max of 30 for each session (critical to giving participants decent feedback in the group critiques that make up the afternoon). Yes, these workshops will be in the Poynter style, where I have taught for many years, with a little SND Quick Course thrown in (I've directed and taught in those as well) but with a uniquely Ron Reason twist. I hope you enjoy! Remember, your entire registration fee goes to charity, and is tax-deductible!
Andrew Skwish gets married! August 5, 2006: Some thought it would never happen, but today, Andrew Skwish married his beautiful bride, Emily Cunningham, in a fun and festive ceremony in Chicago! (Go-go dancing!) SND luminaries from across the nation flew in, from Steve Duenes of The New York Times to Nikki Life of the St. Pete Times to Stephanie Grace Lim and Becky Hall of the San Jose Mercury News. Fun was had by all! Andrew currently is a page designer at Crain's Chicago Business, but also is an amazing illustrator, and he recently painted a guitar for me! Check out his page designs, illustrations, and photos at www.skwish.com .
Ball State road trip! April 10, 2006: One of the perils of knowing so many people in the industry is, inevitably people start to ask favors. And when you turn them down, they keep asking! But it turned out to be a joy to finally be able to visit Ball State University and speak with the staff of the Daily News, critique some of their redesign efforts (see photo above with happy staff!) and review portfolios, and visit with classes of visual journalism sequence director Jennifer Palilonis. BSU is definitely either at or near the top of the heap when it comes to visual presentation of news, both in print as I had known for years, but online as well (in the form of interactive graphics), as I was pleased to see on this visit. One cool observation that I wish I'd see in all the newsrooms I visit: a great inspirational gallery of front pages from within the past year, gracing almost all the wall space of their conference room (below). When someone has an idea in a planning meeting (imagine that!), they can quickly reference a winning cover from the past, instead of reinventing the wheel. I also saw a dry-erase board with story ideas for the next week's worth of papers, with topics or sections color-coded for easy reference - another great planning tool. Want a taste of the graphics training they get? Check out Jennifer's new book, “A Practical Guide to Graphics Reporting.” (Yes, I contributed a small segment, but no, I'm not getting any royalties!) 
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Updated: August 2006. Email me here
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