Dutch graphics summit draws stunning inaugural audience

The first Dutch infographics summit, organized by Frederik Ruys, was a tremendous inaugural effort, drawing more than 200 graphics specialists from major newspapers, magazines, television networks and online publications. The summit, on March 21, happened just one week after the successful annual Malofiej Infographics World Summit in Pamplona. The interest in Europe for visual storytelling certainly appears to be stronger than ever. Check out the conference site for pictures and stories.

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Thoughts from the Society for News Design president about the 29th Best of Newspaper Design

By Gayle Grin

As always, the competition was exciting, stimulating and tiring as the hard-working judges pored over more than 14,000 entries in three long days of debate and discussion. And before the judging could begin, the entries had to be sorted and categorized by a dedicated group of helpers.

It was an intriguing process. Initially I felt there was so much of the same good stuff but at the same time, I recognized that newspapers have reached a level of maturity in design and we have taught each other so much. I could see quality in design was being identified. With a lot of work to be reviewed, the judges quickly began acting as a unit recognizing the elusive excellence. The judges, with a good international mix, were a tough bunch!

February’s área-11 is online

The February edition of área-11 is now online.
The topics on this issue include:

• ­ Al Día: a weekly newspaper “made in” Colombia and published in Philadelphia.
• ­ The “Argentina Report” from Mauricio Gutiérrez, in which he writes about what we can expect from a visit to Buenos Aires at the workshop in 2009.
• ­ Some information about “Lo mejor del Periodismo Visual Latinomericano,” a new competition for publications in Central and South America.

Adrian Alvarez reminds us to enjoy — and practice our Spanish!

Link.

SND-BA: A sneak peek at Argentina

By Mauricio Gutierrez
Deputy Design Director/Features, Detroit Free Press

If you’re thinking that SND Buenos Aires could be a good conference to attend in 2009, put in your vacation request ASAP! Buenos Aires is piping hot. Has anyone counted how many stories on the city have run in The New York Times lately? A lot.

And for a good reason. I went there a few weeks ago and can give you a sneak peek at what you may see while you’re there enjoying the Workshop.

Live coverage from Syracuse

Check out our live coverage from the 29th Best of Newspaper Design competition at update.snd.org.

J. Ford Huffman joins the Washington Post

J. Ford Huffman, formerly a deputy managing editor at USA Today, is set to join the Washington Post. The memo:

National is thrilled to announce the arrival of J. Ford Huffman, the longtime deputy managing editor for design of USA Today. J. Ford — a true legend in the newspaper design world and one of the founders of USA Today in the 1980s — will work with us to help transform the graphics and all kinds of visual display throughout the A section.

Working closely with Mike Keegan and everyone in News Art as well as Justin Ferrell, the new A section art director, and the rest of the A section design team, J. Ford has volunteered to jump right in and help us think in different ways about all of our visual storytelling.

He’s a terrific source of ideas (not to mention a wise counselor of what works, and what doesn’t), and eager to work closely with National’s editors and reporters to get things done. A longtime DC resident, J. Ford also just happens to be a veteran long-distance runner, currently training for his 23rd marathon…! Please join us in welcoming him.

Susan Glasser, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Bill Hamilton

WSJ returns to six-column front page

Talking Biz News points out that the Wall Street Journal front page changed from a 5-column format back to a 6-column format this Monday:

The Wall Street Journal, which has had a five-column front since a redesign that was unveiled at the beginning of 2007, has returned to a six-column front page.

The change took effect on Monday.

Here is a statement from the paper:

“The Journal decided to add a sixth column to the front page to provide editors design flexibility and slightly increase the amount of real estate dedicated to the major stories of the day. The previous five-column paper wasn’t as flexible and tended to limit the layout options available to editors.

“The decision to move to a six-column format is a change that has been given considerable thought since Marcus Brauchli took over as managing editor in April 2007.

“The ‘What’s News’ feature will continue to be two columns in the new format — Business and Finance, and World-Wide. The Journal will continue to provide its readers with art, graphs and charts as well as hedcuts in the new redesign. The front page ad unit will also remain intact.”

Mario Garcia, the architect of the last two redesigns of The Wall Street Journal said this week’s move was not unexpected:

“(T)his move… was always a subject of discussion, EVEN during our redesign workshops in 2006. I am not surprised, and I think they are doing a good job of implementing the type of front page that is active, energetic and that readers of today, used to busy home pages of online editions, like. Good move for the WSJ, for sure. I like the look and feel.”

SND names winners in first annual book cover contest

Left: Jay Fletcher’s winning soft-cover design.
Right: James Watts’ winning hard-cover design.

They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but as plans crank up for the 29th annual SND creative competition (set to begin Feb. 9), the first ever competition to design the Society’s book cover has been judged, and the winners are…

Jay Fletcher, a staff artist at The Post and Courier in Charleston, SC, is the big winner of the Society for News Design’s first cover competition. Fletcher’s cover will appear on SND’s version of the 29th Edition of The Best of Newspaper Design. The winners’ book will be available in early October and feature competition winners from the year 2007, according to C. Marshall Matlock, SND’s Competition Committee director.

In search of a good design

Some may argue Google’s logo looks silly. Then again, so did most other things on the Internet in the mid-1990s.

“It was playful and deceptively simple. The design subtle as to look almost non-designed, the reading effortless. The colors evoke memories of child play, but deftly stray from the color wheel strictures so as to hint to the inherent element of serendipity creeping into any search results page and the irreverance and boldness of the “I am feeling lucky” link. The texture and shading of each letter is done in an unobtrusive way resulting in lifting it from the page while giving it both weight and lightness. It is solid but there is also an ethereal quality to it.”

Ruth Kedar talks on the logic behind designing the call sign of the Mountain View giant.