March 18 reading

The interviews with the Hartford Courant, Oklahoman and Chicago Tribune were really interesting! I think that thinking about design is a huge part of journalism that is often overlooked on the end of the journalist. I'm sure this is the same thing that has frustrated Karl Gude at Michigan State. With multimedia all the buzz, reporters are constantly told to think about how they can tell their stories visually, but that's still a very different thing than thinking about what page design is saying about your story. I thought it was really interesting that the Oklahoman talked about "entry points" since that's such a Web thing. Online there's really not one way to go about reading a page because we just scan along and read what we feel like reading. I also thought it was interesting to hear about the Hartford Courant's use of dot-com in the front page banner. I wouldn't have thought that one of the oldest newspapers in the country would be so willing to refer to the Web in such a blatantly obvious way. I think the redesigns and the way that the editors talk about the design are really indicative of the way that the industry is moving.

The focus on Web-like design is definitely something we can take into consideration when we are designing the print version of our project for class. I predict we'll use color as a navigation tool and add a lot of visual, pop out elements to help streamline the storytelling and break things up for the reader.

Design also plays a heavy role in the idea brought up in the article "One Image, One Word," because the truth is, that idea doesn't play out without the right design. And also, to back up Gude again, journalists need to be able to think visually and graphicially to really get that. You have to have a visual storytelling-trained eye to be able to see a photograph and know immediately whether it is strong enough to tell the story alone.

I really didn't find the "Is the Web a Tab?" article relevant to this discussion or worth reading.

I really liked the reading on design myths. I think it's important to consider breaking "the rules" from time to time and something I'm sure we'll experiment with in our own publication. The grid system of design has been design editors' go-to response at the paper whenever I don't understand why something can't be done the way I want it to - so I'm glad to finally understand what the grid is.

What I found the most interesting about looking at the "World's best designed newspapers" was how extremely different they look from all the newspapers I'm used to reading. The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, even The Ithaca Journal - all look nothing like that. It just goes to show that just because something is how it's always been doesn't mean it's really working. Again, it's really important for us, as up and coming professionals, to bring with us new ideas about what works, what doesn't, and how we can "break the rules."