mario garcia
From workshop to prototype Not all projects demand the same schedule or logistics. While a good foundation for organizing a redesign can be helpful, and we all have ours, sometimes the timetable and special circumstances demand a different approach, such as a three-day workshop where key people in a project gather, to discuss specific goals that can be accomplished by the end of the session. Such is the value of the “workshop approach” to a redesign. In this style of operation, a group not to exceed twelve people gather in a room complete with computers, printers and sketch pads. If the idea is to redesign a newspaper or magazine, then a top priority is to have content issues have been resolved prior to the start of the workshop. On the first day, a half-session is devoted to a discussion of how the content will flow into the publication: scope and sequence. This is followed by some sketching of how key pages—front page (cover), table of contents (navigators), inside pages with and without advertising, specific section fronts and supplements—will carry the look and feel that the content demands. In a good workshop setting, there is more doing than talking As soon as some basic ideas have been exchanged, the next step is to sit at the
190
pure design
computers to produce very primitive sketches that are then printed, and put on display or beamed onto a projection screen for discussion. And what a difference it makes to deal with “real” pages, as opposed to abstract concepts. One hour of viewing pages can be the equivalent of weeks of discussing how a type strategy, or column measurement, or color palette might look on a nonexistent page. By the end of each day of the workshop, clean, approved sets of pages emerge. And, at the end of the workshop, a full prototype of twelve or more pages are available, ready for designers and editors to carry onto the next step, production of a full prototype to be printed and tested. Workshops do more than just save time—they also provide a good opportunity for team building. Members of the workshop feel ownership of the project, and learning takes place that stays with each individual long after the project has developed wrinkles and everyone readies for the next workshop.
191