SNDSmag 2014|1 by SNDS Magazine

SNDSMagazine

2014|1

Why not just be yourself? 3 The unofficial poet of typography 4 Two Scandinavian winners in WPP 6–7 DN. World’s Best – again! 6–7 Lovely and annoying at the same time 8–11 Digital trends and findings at the newsdesign competition 12–13 FU2I0N14 14–15 Talking about Norwegian sex – in English 16–17 Do you remember? 18–21 Mente – storytelling for the finger and the eye 22–23 Save the date! 24 »It might even be fun!« 26 Purely impossible 27 SND: Redefining news design 28–30 In My Honest Opinion: Flemming Hvidtfeldt 32

President, Chairman for the Competition Committee Flemming Hvidtfeldt Berlingske Media, Vesterbrogade 8, DK-8800 Viborg, Denmark +45 20 91 17 52 fhvidtfeldt@yahoo.dk Vice President Anne Laitinen Turun Sanomat Länsikaari 15, FIN-20240 Turku, Finland anne.laitinen@ts.fi Business Manager, Treasurer Frank Stjerne JP/Politikens Hus, Rådhuspladsen 37, DK-1785 Copenhagen V, Denmark +45 33 47 23 99 frank.stjerne@jppol.dk

Lill Mostad Fredriksstad Blad Stortorvet 3, N-1601 Fredrikstad Norway +47 932 09 367 lill.mostad@f-b.no Anders Tapola Smålandsposten, Linnégatan 2, S-351 70 Växjö, Sweden +46 470 770 686 anders.tapola@smp.se

SNDS Secretariat Lone Jürgensen Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Grøndalsvej 3, DK-8260 Viby J, Denmark +45 87 38 38 38 / 31 08 lone.jurgensen@jp.dk Web-editor, snds.org Kartin Hansen Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Grøndalsvej 3, DK-8260 Viby J, Denmark +45 87 38 38 38 / 31 07 kartin.hansen@jp.dk

Substitutes for the board Finn Egil Johanssen, Adresseavisen, Norway Søren Nyeland, Politiken, Denmark Pieta Forssell-Nieminen, Keskisuomalainen, Finland Petra Villani, Sydsvenskan, Sweden

SNDS MAGAZINE Editor, Art Director MD Lars Pryds +45 30 53 87 14 pryds@mac.com Co-editor, Journalist DJ Lisbeth Tolstrup +45 51 32 89 62 mamamanus@mac.com

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SNDS Magazine editorial office Østerbrogade 158, 3. TH., DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark

ISSN 1901-8088

Read SNDS Magazine as e-magazine: E www.snds.org/magazine

Print: Svendborg Tryk www.svendborgtryk.dk

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Typography: SNDS Magazine is set in Myriad Pro, Myriad Pro Condensed and Adobe Jenson Pro and designed in Adobe Indesign for Macintosh. Articles and ideas for SNDS Magazine and snds.org are most welcome. Please contact us if you have any tips or ideas. SNDS Magazine is published four times a year, in March, June, September and December. Deadlines are: 15 February, 15 May, 15 August, and 15 November.

The front page: Life and death in magazines – a pretty behind and a skull on covers entered in the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition. Photo: Lars Pryds.

Published by: Society for News Design Scandinavia E www.snds.org

SNDS is on Facebook: E facebook.com/sndscandinavia

SNDS is on twitter: E @sndstwit

SNDS Magazine 2014|1 Editorial

Why not just be yourself?

– SND35 Long-form judges*

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years, news media have tried to find out what to do with themselves. As far back as 1996 the programme for the annual SNDS conference (in Sundsvall) focused on the difficulties newspapers had when facing the internet. The struggle for survival is not nearly over yet but the technical possibilities have changed tremendously. And the struggle is taking place in both digital and print publications. Two trends can be observed in today’s media landscape: n The attempt to get people to read long stories in digital media. n The invasion of the internet in the printed newspapers. The first trend is connected to the iPad and other tablets – but is now also finding its way into the good old internet. Several news publishers are creating areas on their sites which let users read long stories undisturbed by news flashes, irrelevant corny headlines or irritating, animated ads. This is not a bad thing – although some of us still prefer to have the light from the reading lamp shine on the pages, not from them. The other trend is, however, really annoying. More and more news coverage in print is based on twitter feeds, Facebook updates and similar “who-said-what-and-I-saw-it-on-theinternet” reporting. Whole articles are based on sources grabbed from the web, and newspapers and magazines alike run special pages based on what can be

SNDS conference 9–10 October 2014 Copenhagen, DK

found online, passed on with none or minimal journalistic editing. One reason for this could be a shortage of staff, of course, making way for an easy solution to fill the pages with free stuff based on copy-paste. But, honestly, whenever I want to know what happens on the internet, I log on to – the internet. Use the excellent social media apps to find new ideas and get in touch with people, but please, please keep undigested tweets and irrelevant updates out of the print product I pay to have delivered in print. The worst example I’ve come across recently was a fact box for an article printed in my favourite newspaper, looking like this (yes, in capital letters): EFacts ERead more on Google – followed by seven or eight sentences I was supposed to type into Google to find further reading. “Read more on Google”?? What on Earth has that got to do with facts? Google is a search engine, for Chrissakes, not an automated facts generator. Our sense of ethics are under attack when commercial data algorithms alone, rather than journalists, are supposed to deliver the facts unedited. I worry about this in respect to not only print but also online communication. We should always keep in mind where our sources come from and present the facts as best we can, in a media suitable for the specific story. That is why the quote above, taken from this year’s judges’ statement for a Gold winner in the SND35 competition, hits the nail. It is possible to tell great stories in extraordinary ways without trying to be something else.

In the magazine Here at SNDS Magazine, we do our best to find, and tell, stories that have value for you as SNDS members. Some of these members work at Dagens Nyheter in Stockholm and for the second year in a row now, they can say they work at the World’s best designed newspaper. Two other proud Scandinavians are winners in this year’s World Press Photo contest – see page 6–7. Jørgen Høg, former editor of SNDS Magazine, reports from the jury work in the SND35 competition (p. 16–17). We also look back on some of the past SNDS conferences and how they have been presented (p. 18–21). It’s our pleasure to bring you Philip Ritzenberger’s view on the past and the future of SND (p. 28–30). Philip was there when SND was founded in 1979, so he has been with us all the way and knows what he’s talking about. In February, 13 jury members met with the competition committee in Billund to find the best Scandinavian digital and print designs from 2013. We report from the event (p. 8–13). We also look at a new Portuguese iPad-only magazine – and an impossible font. Last but not least, we’re introducing a new column on the back page – “In My Honest Opinion”, or IMHO. SNDS President Flemming Hvidtfeldt kicks off this new format, but alternating contributors will get the chance to express their opinions in the future. We hope you like it. If you think something is missing, or if you have ideas for things we should include in the magazine, please give us a hint. n Lars Pryds Editor, SNDS Magazine

* About the New York Times Gold winner in Special News Topics, Local/Regional in SND35, this year’s Best of News Design competition.

Save the dates! More info: fusion.snds.org

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It’s a very interactive piece on a flat medium, not a newspaper trying to be something else …

The unofficial poet of typography Unless Bringhurst plans a considerably expanded version 5.0 that focuses as much on web, mobile, and display typography as it does on the world of books, he should let Elements be what it is: a wonderfully written and wise summary of the world of typography as he found it.” — Maurice Meilleur, a recovering political theorist turned graphic designer and committed typophile, teacher at the University of Illinois, on typographica.org about the seminal book by Robert Bringhurst, The Elements of Typographic Style, which Hermann Zapf called the “Typographer’s Bible”. The book, first published in 1992, is now in version 4.0 – with a naming

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Illustration : Plantu/ Det kongelige danske bibliotek

convention that signals far more web consciousness than the content itself, which is heavily grounded on print. In his review Meilleur does, however, recognize the book’s range and depth and the generosity and precision of its advice, but: “Elements is far better at exploring the meaning of good typography, at describing outcomes, than explaining process. The debates that brought us to what we value in good typography, the questions that remain contested, the actual means of translating principles into practice for students, are not here. And shouldn’t necessarily be. Bringhurst is the unofficial poet of typography, and a great one at that.” Read the full review at: E kortlink.dk/dtcu –pryds

Anti-everything

Don’t be a Bigfoot Boss Artsy-fartsy photo

Self-censorship is constantly in my head. Sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously so that I can only see it afterwards. Each week, I am accused of being anti-Semite, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian and anti-everything-else because of my drawings. Of course it seeps in, even though I constantly try to fight it.”

Managers with a reputation for bigfooting others are unlikely to be seen as true leaders. What they gain in short-term glory or power, they lose in respect and collaboration — and ultimately undermine their own success.”

— Plantu, Le Monde's legendary caricature artist, to Journalisten.dk at a workshop for Danish illustrators, held in connection with an exhibition of his drawings at the Royal Danish Library. The exhibition is organized by “Museet for Dansk Bladtegning” and shows a comprehensive selection of Plantu’s provocative and intelligent drawings, most of which are published on the most prominent of all places in France: the front page of Le Monde. A special section shows topics related to Denmark and Danish events – like the one shown here: The final days of the COP15 climate summit in Copenhagen 2009. The exhibition is open until 26 April 2014. Read more about the exhibition: E kortlink.dk/dtcp

— Jill Geisler, a teacher in leadership styles, conflict resolution, ethics et al., in Poynter.org’s “How-To” section, advising bosses, or people who aspire to management, to give employees as much autonomy as possible along with the every bit credit they’ve earned: “We live in a world that shines the spotlight on the top leader. Widen the beam at every opportunity. When there’s a success, credit your co-leaders. Make it absolutely clear when their ideas, solutions or just plain hard work are the driving force behind wins and wise moves. When they mess up, stand with them and take your lumps. Then work together to find solutions.” Jill Geisler gives five simple tips to follow, if you want to “make certain that your staff doesn’t consider you a Bigfoot Boss, someone who puts your own agenda first”. Find the tips on Poynter.org: E kortlink.dk/dtcn

The increased focus on visual journalism, and on international photo contests, appear to have led some press photographers into the misapprehension that they are artists, rather than communicators. “ — Ole Munk, design consultant and former SNDS President, in a comment to what he calls an “artsy-fartsy photograph that adds absolutely nothing to the story” – but taking up a half page (broadsheet) in Politiken. Ole Munk explains, “What the title (The rise and fall of press photo graphy, ed.) refers to is a degeneration which I think is taking place within the field of press photography. This degeneration can be seen as an inadvertent, and paradoxical, side effect of the press photographer’s well-deserved rise in status which started when newspapers began telling stories with a more consistent use of visual tools.” Read the full post on: E munkytalk.com –pryds

TRUTH NO. 1

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Styling your front is easier than ever. And makes great difference. Used by Extrabladet, Denmark Radio, VG and Norwegian Broadcasting.

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Photo: Peter Holgersson

1st prize Peter Holgersson's (S) story "Nadja Casadei – heptathlon and cancer" won 1st prize in the 2014 World Press Photo Sports feature category.

Two Scandinavian winners in WPP n The

international jury of the 57th annual World Press Photo Contest has selected an image by American photographer John Stanmeyer of the VII Photo Agency as the World Press Photo of the Year 2013. The picture shows African migrants on the shore of Djibouti city at night,

raising their phones in an attempt to capture an inexpensive signal from neighboring Somalia – a tenuous link to relatives abroad. Djibouti is a common stop-off point for migrants in transit from such countries as Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, seeking a better life in Europe and the Middle East.

The picture also won 1st Prize in the Contemporary Issues category, and was shot for National Geographic. In the Sports Feature category, the Swedish photographer Peter Holgersson won 1st prize for a series about the Swedish athlete Nadja Casadei, who has participated in the World and

DN. World’s Best – again! Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

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SND judges have named five newspapers "World's Best Designed" after a busy week in Syracuse, where the judging takes place. If, by reading the five names, you get a feeling of dejavu, its no surprise, as four newspapers are exactly the same as last year: Dagens Nyheter (Sweden), Die Zeit and Welt am Sonntag (Germany), and The Grid (Canada). Newcomer is The Guardian (UK), who pushed Politiken (DK) away from the podium this year. About Dagens Nyheter, the SND judges wrote: "A newspaper that’s designed like a magazine, Sweden’s largest morning daily delivers a no-nonsense news report whose strength stems from strong,

boldly cropped photos. The design uses white space efficiently to present a lot of information without overwhelming the reader. For a small-format newspaper, it does big, ambitious work.” Dagens Nyheter’s Art Director Lotta Ek was in Syracuse as member of the World’s Best jury. “It was a great experience to be part of the jury”, says Lotta Ek. “And it was, of course, no less than fantastic that Dagens Nyheter was named one of the World’s best designed newspapers – again. I guarantee you that the work in the jury was very professional. When one of the jury members had a conflict of interest with an entry he or she had to leave the room when that entry was discussed. The feeling when I returned to the room after the other members had discussed Dagens Nyheter for the last time

and saw that the paper was still on the table was really special. Then I knew we had gone all the way! This award means a lot to us. It’s a confirmation that we are doing things right and give us extra energy to continue trying to make a great paper even better,” says Lotta Ek. The jury describes the results of this work with these words: “Dagens Nyheter interprets with style, while never losing sight of substance." n

See also: "Talking about Norwegian sex – in English" on page 16–17 – Jørgen Høg's report from this year's jury work. E www.snd.org

E www.dn.se

Photo: Markus Varesvuo

Photo: john stanmeyer

2nd prize In the Nature category, Markus Varesvuo's (Finland) photo showing a flock of guillemots in a snowstorm won 2nd Prize.

from the shores of djibouti World Press Photo of the Year 2013.

European Championships in heptathlon. In autumn 2013, she was diagnosed with cancer and by January 2014 she completed her chemotherapy. She continued to train throughout her illness, hoping to be healthy and ready by the summer for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

See Peter Holgersson's award winning series (12 images) here: E kortlink.dk/dtct A 2nd prize in the Nature, singles category went to Markus Varesvuo, Finland, for his shot of a flock of guillemots (Uria aalgae) in a snowstorm in Vardo, Norway.

The winners were selected from a total of 98,671 photos by 5,754 photographers representing 132 nationalities. No Norwegian or Danish photographers were awarded this year. –pryds

World's best Dagens Nyheter from Stockholm is the World's Best Designed newspaper – for the second year in a row. A front page with impact, strong typography, and purposeful and thought out pairing of text and image were some of the qualities observed by the judges.

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E www.worldpressphoto.org

Lovely and annoying at the same time It’s great. It’s so cool. You can touch it. This is impossible to read! But it’s art – it’s not supposed to be read! There’s way too much white space on the top here. I just looove the hard black and white graphics and the photography. A great idea, but it only has four votes – it’s OUT!! No no no, you can only vote once for each entry! You’re such a nice person, so I can give it a vote if you convince me. I think many people will cut this out of the paper and hang it on their wall.

Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

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statements above (including the headline) were just a few of the comments during the days when the digital and print juries met in Billund to find the winners in this year’s Best of Scandinavian News Design competition. To quote the Beatles, “words were flowing out like endless rain into a papercup” at Hotel Legoland, where the jury traditionally assembles. There was no rain, though – the weather was at its best and maybe that helped keep the spirits high and the conversation going.

Even our photographer Lars Aarø who, like previous years, joined the jury session to photograph all nominated pages, after less than an hour in the room suddenly said, “Don’t they laugh a lot this year?” And yes, there were lots of laughs. But most of all, there were serious discussions and well argumented decisions – and in the end, the juries believe they have picked the right winners. A total of 3 gold, 15 silver, and 47 honorable mentions were awarded in the print categories and the Best Designed Newspaper in Scandinavia and two Best Details found. In the digital categories the numbers were: 2 gold, 13

silver, and 16 honorable mentions. One of the gold winners will also win a “Best of show” award. Trends this year The number of entries for the digital categories had almost doubled – from 62 to 114 – while print received 611 entries, 152 down from last year’s 763. “Although the number of entries declined this year, the commitee still get a good impression of the standard of Scandinavian print design. And it is still good. Very good indeed. This year we had two new categories – Portfolio and Magazines not published by news papercompanies. Not many entries in

the two categories, but I hope they will grow in the coming years,” says competition chairman Flemming Hvidtfeldt. “It was very inspiring to be part of the jury this year,” says Adresseavisen’s Ingrid Meisingset, who was also in the jury in 2004 and 2005: “Today, focus is often on production and technical issues, so it was good to see so much creativity in the entries.” Cilla Nilsson from Helsingborgs Dagblad thought the newspaper magazines had submitted great works: “However, there were not many surprises, nor examples of designing pages in ways we have never seen before. And the international outlook and report-

ages from abroad were almost missing – most stories unfold in domestic contexts.” Brilliant ideas One of the new jury members in the digital competition this year was Björn Heselius, Head of the Visual Department at Hufvudstadsbladet in Helsinki. He had a truely inspiring week: “For a newbie this was a good reminder that there still is a mind blowing amount of journalistic creativity and brilliant ideas out there. With that said, it was a strange feeling to return to the newsroom and catch up on the

world outside of our parallel universe.” His thought are confirmed by Ulf Högberg, also member of the jury; on page 12–13 in this magazine he gives a though report of the digital trends observed in Billund. Högberg’s conclusion is that the overall digital approach has reached a maturity – with focus on the user experience. Over the next few pages enjoy a glimpse of the two juries at work. The winners of honorable mention and the nominees for silver and gold will be announced on the snds.org website shortly. The winners will get their awards at the SNDS conference in Copenhagen on 9–10 October 2014. n

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PRint Glimpses from the jury at work, selecting winners in the print categories. Photo: Lars Aarø, www.fokus-foto.dk

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Photo: LARS PRYDS

PRint More glimpses from the print jury’s work. Photo: Lars Aarø/www.fokus-foto.dk

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lego dragon The juries and committee in front of the Hotel Legoland entrance – which is of course, guarded by a dragon. Back row, left to right: Sami Valtere, Kim Bjørn, Ulf Högberg, Tone Gilje, Elisabeth Svendby, Rickard Frank, Lone Jürgensen, Claus Johansen, Cilla Hansson, Ingrid Meisingset, Søren S. Nielsen. Front row: Lars Pryds, Kim Schou, Flemming Hvidtfeldt, Björn Heselius. Niels Bøje Ziegler was not present. Photo: Lars Aarø/www.fokus-foto.dk

Digital trends and findings at the newsdesign competition The annual jury meeting in Billund, Denmark, is over. Many winners have been found, hundreds of runner-ups have been discarded, and trends have been observed. Ulf Högberg, member of the digital jury, looks back on a busy week. Ulf Högberg uhogberg@gmail.com together at Legoland Hotel in Billund is always a great experience. Not only do you get to meet your awesome peers who work with digital news design. Eat all the great food and enjoy drinks after a long hard day. You also get an exclusive insight to what online news sites around Scandinavia are doing. And that’s quite a unique treat. This time was no different. The big surprise was that we received almost twice as many entries as last year. We suspect that re-working the categories had some influence on that. It’s always a thing in progress and we will continue to tweak those. If you have suggestions or critique regarding this, we would be very happy to have your voice on those. There were some clear trends this year and we saw lots of inspiring, beautiful, user-friendly examples of news design. Here are a few observations:

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1: Responsive Design. There were quite a few examples who used responsive (or adaptive) design that were optimised for multiple screens – smartphones, tablets and desktops. In some cases we clearly saw that a mobile approach was the start, but also the other way around. But you got a seamless access to the same story, no matter what. This is not only a design quest, but also a tactic and holistic approach that changes the newsroom production flow that takes some re-structuring of how you present the news. Presenting news on a mobile is very different from a desktop since you can’t fit stories side by side on a smaller screen and therefor have to decide the hierarchy of importance. Lately, responsive design also affects how you score on Google rankings. We saw some really good examples on how responsive design was used and that

mobile maturity has certainly landed. Now. If only the ad model could follow. 2: Simple Design. We saw a clear swing to using best practices for putting the user in focus and to tell the story better by using designs that have less clutter. You can also tell that the navigation is taking another approach. The “Hamburger” menu seems to be the new norm on all screen sizes. The traditional left hand navigation is fading and users are getting used to on-demand menus, sticky headers and navigation that follows as you scroll. This allows for a clean and simple design. Flat design has also made its way into online news design and we’re quite sure that this will continue into the next years’ redesigns. We saw that this approach is well balanced with accented details where it matters. 3: Storytelling. The last couple of years there has obviously been a shift towards shorter storytelling targeted for social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube and any other single-serving blog. All these platforms work ever so slightly different that it takes quite a challenge to serve them all. “Produce one, publish everywhere” seems harder and harder. Meanwhile, as stories get shorter and smaller, we also get to enjoy how online news articles are simultaneously getting a lot larger and bolder too. Who would have expected that? New York Times is one of the media companies pioneering the long-form digital article storytelling with pieces like “Snow Fall” etc. This has certainly inspired for a new mixed media that combines long texts, bold photography, beautiful typography, large illustrations, fullbrowser video into one neatly designed package. For the new digital generation of users that rather watch a Vine video, this could be a game changer. For

example,Twitter co-founder Evan Williams launched Medium, where people share longer-form ideas for those who think well beyond just 140 characters. We saw quite a few of these long form stories. Long scroll, parallax storytelling and were amazed by the creativity and that the old limitations for online design is no more. Tablet targeted app design with a clear print approach was in style a few years ago, but failed to attract. The mixed media, long-form seems to be the way to go. Most examples we saw were also responsive and gave a very focused mobile experience that we spent a lot of time in. And no. Scrolling is not a bad thing. 4: Data Visualization. Another big trend and a new category in the SNDS competition is Data Project. Data driven journalism and Data Visualization has just exploded and you can see ads from media houses looking for people with

Photo: kim bjørn

these talents. It is also reflected in this category with many entries. Taking data from established sources or crowd-sourcing is equally common in this field. Interactive maps, illustrations, tables, graphs, bubble charts are some of the tools that tells a story to help the user understand complex topics and issues. To use the power of the users to gather data to get new results to help produce stories and set the agenda has become a powerful tool and will continue to grow. This also lets the audience become part of the story and boost loyalty towards the media brand. Both small and large brands have jumped on the bandwagon and we will see this explode in the future. There are lots of free open source tools out there for anyone to create a customized compelling piece. The transfer from traditional narrative info-graphics towards sophisticated interactive data projects is the challenge here and will make a impact on how staffing and tools in the newsrooms are set up for the future. 5: TV Experience. The dawn on online TV for news organisations is here to stay. Especially traditional newspapers are putting a lot of money and effort into building full blown TV-studios to produce high quality live and on demand content, challenging broadcasters who got a head start. This has all the possibilities to be a game changer and

we saw a lot of great examples in this category with integrated live texts and social media feeds as well as real time photo galleries and more. Clearly, the ad market for this medium is a big reason for all the investments and efforts here, and programmatic buying in TV ads to target audiences is going to be the big thing of the future of online news economy. To sum it all up: We loved how the overall digital approach has reached a maturity and a more User Experience centric level than the past years. However, there’s a lot more to do and the online news designer is becoming more and more important for the newsrooms. Agile and lean UX workflows with journalists, developers and designers are finding their way into the traditional workflows to produce better and faster content. CMS are up for new challenges, Ad and Marketing has some shifting to do in order to meet the new demands. Really exciting to be part of this in 2014. Got comments? Suggestions on digital news design categories for next year? Don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. See you at Fusion14 in Copenhagen, October 9-11. We got a bunch of cool n stuff to show. Ulf Högberg is an award-winning creative director who has worked for some of the world’s largest media companies, including CNN.com, ITV and Schibsted.

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digital The jury for the digital categories had twice as many entries to look through than last year – maybe because new categories like “TV experience”, “Data Project”, and “Redesign” were introduced. There were, however, also time for a coffee break – and time to check something really funny on the smartphones. Photo: Lars Aarø/www.fokus-foto.

Exclusive workshops before the conference For those who arrive early on thursday and wants extra knowledge, we offer exclusive workshops with some of the speakers! Stay tuned for updates on the different topics that will be covered here. There will be several workshops that will teach you skills in both printed newsdesign, the latest technologies and best practices in digital cross-platform design!

Conference start-up with style As on the wrong 2013 conference we kickstart the conference with a welcome drink, worldknown keynote speakers and cosy networking in the breaks. And don’t worry: We’ll set up the nice buffet, just to get you fueled for the rest of the evening.

THE SNDS CONFERENCE IN 2014

Lighting the fuse with 20x20x10 In true Pecha Kucha spirit (google it!) we light the fuse thursday evening with 10 speakers presenting each an idea, concept or project with 20 slides each in 20 seconds! This is ensured to get your attention as each one races through their presentaion in about 6-7 minutes. Sharp, focused to-the-point presentations that will leave you inspired!

Night out in Copenhagen As the city lights has turned on, so do we. Thursday night the SNDS expedition will be heading out in the Copenhagen Nightlife in a guided tour to a fancy bar. That’s all we need to keep the fuse lit and the talk going.

Great line-up of speakers We are already talking to speakers that we want you to learn and get inspired from. To keep you focused and because we will have such great speakers from all around the world, we have only one track in the program friday. There will be ten speakers lined up, talking for 30 minutes each and you even get a break each hour to exchange ideas and network!

Morning yoga or running session On friday morning you can choose to go for a guided run around the lakes of Copenhagen (6.5km) with fellow newsdesigners – or you can energize your mind and body in a special yoga-session.

9th – Friday 11th 10th Thursday 10th of October

http://fu

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SIGN UP FOR NEWS ON FUSION14.SNDS.ORG The award show No conference without the award show where winners are celebrated and a fancy dinner is shared with good friends. You will have a good look at the winning entries while enjoying an excellent DJ mix of nice vibes. And this year we even keep the bar open much longer – just to extend the joy and love!

Cultural saturday No better way to clear your head and round off some great days than visiting some of the big newsrooms in Copenhagen. We will offer an exclusive behind the scenes visit to two great media houses – more to come on that one too!

Talking about Norwegian sex – in English Also pages with articles in their native language have a chance in SND’s international design contest. Former SNDS Magazine editor Jørgen Høg went to Syracuse to judge in the SND35 competition. And to explain the Scandinavian headlines to his fellow jury members.

Jørgen Høg joergen@hoegkommunikation.dk Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish or Danish newspaper pages have a chance in a competition with primarily English-speaking judges? The question may be relevant when this Danish judge several times had to explain to American or English judges the meaning of the contents of an entry in Danish or Norwegian. “Jorgen. What is this about? Tell us about it,” they asked. “Ja, vi elsker,” says the Norwegian headline to a feature article posted by Dagbladet Magasinet from Oslo. “Vi har kartlagt norske sexvaner. Endelig får du vite hva naboen egentlig holder på med,” says the subhead in Norwegian. American observers understood immediately not so much. On the other hand, there was no doubt when I explained my four fellow

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judges in my group,what was written in the article with a little frivolous, pink illustrations. “Yes, we make love. We have mapped Norwegian sexual habits. Finally we’re getting to know what our neighbors are really doing”, I explained from the text. Therefore you could ask, if it is a problem for English-speaking judges to assess newspaper design objectively if they are drafted in a foreign language. “Short answer, no.” Kristin Lenz is Art Director of Inc. magazine and her voice is clear. “We saw several papers in Chinese, Arabic an even Hebrew. While they were almost impossible to translate, it was clear when they were designed well or not. Good design should, and often does, transcend language. I believe the longform team did award a few of these papers with an Award of Excellence based on the fact that the design was clean, solid, sharp,” she says. Our British colleague in the long-

form judge group, Nick Hallam, Senior Art Director from The Wall Street Journal in New York, is more direct. “Yes, I do feel that it was difficult to judge work without understanding the content and therefore why certain design decisions were made. I also felt it was difficult judging foreign work, particularly Asian and South American, without taking their culture into consideration. Some solid work was passed over as it didn’t conform to our design sensibilities,” he says. Holly Braford, freelance designer and illustrator from New York: “Sometimes. Content counts and I was looking for detailed translations on anything I couldn’t read. Luckily, I know a little Spanish and we had access to others who could translate,” she says. She is more or less in line with another American, Greg Branson, Assistant Managing Editor/Presentation and Innovation from The Kansas City Star. “Yes and no. I think we recogA silver medal goes to Dagbladet Magasinet in Oslo, Norway, for Magazines, Cover story design, features – an article about how Norwegians make love.

More about the competition: E www.snd.org

sex on the table? Left: Nick Hallam, Kristin Lenz, Holly Braford, Jørgen Høg, and Greg Branson discuss pages in the Long-form jury. Right: Jørgen Høg in deep concentration, judging the long-form format in both print and digital versions. Photos: Rob Schneider.

the very best A special five member jury (among them Lotta Ek from Dagens Nyheter) found and named the World’s Best-Designed™ Newspapers – four of them repeated winners from last year. Newcomer is The Guardian, World’s Best also in 2005 and 2007.

nize good design — no matter what language it is in the best stuff shines through. But without being able to read an entry, we may miss out on the nuances of the entries — the humor, the plays on language, the subtle things. It’s a great help just having a translation of the headlines as some of the SND entries had, but it doesn’t take the place of reading every line.” Would it be appropriate to have a category for pages not in English? “I don’t think it’s necessary. I would love to see more translations. I was stunned more papers didn’t send them. It’s not just a beauty contest. We need to know what the story is too,” says Holly Braford. Greg Branson agrees. “I don’t think so,” he says. “I don’t think it would allow us to understand the entry any better. And I don’t like the idea of segregating an entry because of language. Like I said, good design is good design. But when you enter SND, A silver medal goes to Aamulehti in Tampere, Finland, for a hand-written front page in the category News Design, A-section.

you know you are going to get mostly American judges with a minority of international judges. I think it’s fair to temper your expectations based on that. When there are huge cultural differences, you may want to put more weight on your results in regional competitions than how you do in SND. If you are from southeast Asia, it’s more fair to compare yourself other papers in your region with the same design and typographic traditions,” Branson explains. Nick Hallam: “I think this could be interesting, but would all non-English publication be in the same category? Would this really solve the problem?” he asks. n Jørgen Høg is Editor-in-Chief at Søfart, a Danish weekly magazine and website for the maritime trades, and the founder of Høg Kommunikation. Previously he worked at Jyllands-Posten and Data graf Communications and was the editor of SNDS Magazine in 2006–2010. A silver medal goes to Politiken of Copenhagen, Denmark, in General News Photography, Planned Events. From the judges' remarks: "A lot of things that rise to the top, especially in news, are a reaction to negative news. Its happiness is not a bad thing, it’s refreshing."

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THE FACTS 22 judges examined 8,680 entries. Total winning entries : 1,132 Gold medals: 6 Silver medals: 63 Judges Special Recognitions: 7 Awards of Excellence: 1,051 World’s Best-Designed™ Newspapers: 5

Photos: SND.org

Do you remember? Every year since 1986 SND Scandinavia has hosted a conference for news design as one of the organsation’s main activities. Thinking back, each event brings out memories and little stories. SNDS Magazine editor Lars Pryds has been in the archives to pick a few of the logos and graphic solutions used to present the events.

1997

1998

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Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

1996: Sundsvall, Sweden The earliest example of a logo for an SNDS conference we could find is from 1996, when the event was hosted by Sundsvalls Tidning. The theme was “nyheter på ny@ väger” (news in new w@ys) – the “at” sign indicating the new digital challenge. The logo itself, however, is a mixture of a typographic manual (all type placed in a baseline grid) and a vanishing point as taken from a text book about perspective drawing – with “SNDS” in the middle. 1997: Billund, Denmark For the conference in Billund, Riber gård & Munk designed a handy little booklet, which I still think is one of the

most brilliant solutions for a conference program. Spiral binding, the size of a reporter’s notepad, and with 12 blank pages for notes, the book fits perfectly in your pocket. On the cover, the good old collage of letters ripped from different newspapers show the (typographic) variety of the news business. 1998: Oslo, Norway The 1998 Oslo conference did not have a regular logo, but a graphic identity designed by Helge Værland, based around the bold use of typography and men in swimmingpools. The name of the gentleman on the cover is not known today, but each of the 306 conference attendees (a record number at the time) was given an orange swimcap to wear at the gala dinner – and in the pool. Chairman of the Oslo committe, Pål A. Berg, recalls how a printing error

in all the program brochures suddenly gave him extra work: “I had to manually glue the correct text into the brochures – and there were hundreds of them!” On the speaker list were among others Kjell Nordström, Ron Reason, Christer Hellmark, and grunge design guru David Carson. Being a former world class top surfer, Carson might have inspired the committee to settle for the wet theme. 1999: Copenhagen, Denmark The wet feeling stayed on the following year – when Copenhagen hosted the international SND seminar and workshop. The logo, designed by JyllandsPosten’s Agnete Holk, is based on a drawing of The Little Mermaid, perhaps the single Danish object known by the largest number of people in the

1996

world – and with the joint event this was indeed an international audience. In the official program Ole Munk, then SNDS President, compared most newspapers to something rather the opposite of the Little Mermaid: “Many more appear to be sleeping beauties, dwelling in all their glittery nineties-postmodern-retro-computerblurred-shadows design, all the while the world is moving on outside their blinded newsroom windows. And circulation is slipping.” And this was 15 years ago. Optimistic all the same, Ole Munk promised that the 1999 conference would be a “life-savers’ workshop” – because, “Our aim is basically to help newspapers survive. [They] are essential elements in our democracies, and maybe we are the only ones who can save them”, he said.

2001

2001: Tampere, Finland The digital focus was even greater in Tampere, and the graphic identity strongly reflected this by being based upon a pixel typeface and a lot of zeros and ones – the binary number system’s two digits. Memorable speakers include designers from NOKIA, then the world leader in mobiles (remember?), Pelle Anderson of A4, and Chank Diesel of Chank Fonts – who had married a few days before and brought his wife along for a honeymoon trip. After a couple of beers, he created a very analog ink drawing in a notebook that I have kept until this day. Nothing much digital about that. 2002: Malmö, Sweden “In Between the Lines” was the title for the 2002 conference, hosted by Syd

svenskan. A simple but strong graphic solution using the barcode as the digital signal and a few circles in bright colours as the rebellious elements. The word pun is obvious, but the clean black-and-white logo is beautifully complemented by the use of Paul Renner’s classic Futura typeface. The past meets the future – avantgarde design meets the barcode reader of modern supermarkets. Design: Benjamin Peetre. In the advertising material for the conference, the Swedish organisers asked these questions: “How do the readers understand the information on our pages? How do their brains work? Does it matter at all what the newspapers look like?” 27 speaker sessions would dig into the brains of readers and designers in search for the answers.

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1999

2002

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2003

2005

2004

2006 2008 2007

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2003: Stavanger, Norway “The Word” was a bold choice of theme in Norway 2003 – with a almost biblical metaphor in the opening note from the organisers: “In the beginning was the word – design came later. […] The word is the nucleus of all news. Words can make us cry and laugh, make ud angry, indifferent or they can activate us. Words can confuse or explain. Words can change the world.” In the program were, nonetheless, people like Javier Zarrachina about graphic storytelling and the Swedish photographer David Kinsella, whose film about illegal Russian abortions is by far the strongest experience at a speaker session I have ever witnessed, almost nauseating in its quiet depiction of terrifying events. So the visual journalist had every reason to go to Stanvanger, too.

2004: Copenhagen, Denmark In the year leading up to the 2004 conference, the unthinkable happened: The companies behind long-time enemies, Politiken and Jyllands-Posten, were merged into one company. The committee led the way – with members from both media houses who were competitors when work began actually ended up as colleagues at the time of the event – and the name “UpSideDown” gave even better meaning. The logo was designed by Søren Nyeland of Politiken, I (then at Jyllands-Posten) added the yellow colour and heavy use of the TPG TolleOne typeface. The remaining years of the new millennium’s first decade gave us, in quick succession, conferences with names to set the tone of the event – “The Sound of Paper” (Helsinki, 2005); “Contrast” (Trondheim, 2006); “Crash” (Copen hagen, 2008); and “24” (Oulu, 2009).

The latter signalled both that news is now a 24-hour service as well as the fact that in Oulu the sun is up almost for 24 hours as well, the city being situated north of the Polar Circle. The Oulu speaker list was terrific, but perhaps the conference will also be remembered for the performance by the Air Guitar World Champion, the Screaming Men’s Choir (Mieskuoro Huutajat), and the two comedians Minimi, who gave us the history of Finland in 30 minutes on stage. 2007: Stockholm, Sweden In Stockholm, there was no name for the conference. The SNDS logo and graphic identity had just been redesigned, so emphasis was on showing the world the rewamped logo in the deep red colour (I still keep the t-shirt), but the main attraction was perhaps the “Xtreme Dalahorse Makeover” compe-

2011 2010

OSLO 30. SEPTEMBER – 2. OCTOBER

2012

2011: Stockholm, Sweden One year later, Stockholm was the place to go to find out how to “Make a Difference”, this year’s theme. The conference committee showed up in yellow t-shirts and paper flags, showing the way around town – and a logo designed by Lars Andersson “with a touch of Wild West atmosphere”, as he puts it, using Font Bureau’s Showcard Gothic font – an unusual choice for a news design event, but then again: The idea was to make a difference. Among other unusual observations was the Best of Show award, given to Helsingin Sanomat’s Sami Valtere for a magazine series about – pornography. Amazing what news design can lead to. 2012, 2013, 2014: Copenhagen, Denmark In 2012, the SNDS conference found its permanent place in space – in Copenhagen. It was decided, for practical and logistic reasons, that the event should take place in Copenhagen every year rather than alternate between the four Nordic countries. Due to the difficulty in finding media houses willing to take on the organising responsibility, this was placed within the SNDS board and a program committee was formed. The SPACE_2012 identity was based around the TPG SquareSpace

2013

2014

font, developed especially for the occasion, whereas the 2013 and 2014 logos were created by Sami Valtere, using heavy stencil lettering and 100% magenta (for WRONG) and a clever combination of letters and numbers (for Fu2i0n14). The latter is a bit tricky to write – which is probably the reason why the website for this year’s conference, which will be held on 9–10 October, can be found on this url: fusion.snds.org See you in Copenhagen, for a new n graphic conference experience! In the research for this article, it has not been possible to find material about the 2000 Reykjavik conference, nor for the 1986–1995 events. If you have any such material, we would love to either borrow it or add it to our archives. E-mail me at pryds@mac.com – thanks.

See also SNDS Magazine no. 2, 2011: kortlink.dk/drxw for more info about the conferences. SNDSMagazine 2014|1

2010: Oslo, Norway The 2010 conference was scheduled for 22–24 April, but eruptions of Eyjafjalla jökull volcano in Iceland grounded passenger flights all over Europa for weeks and made SNDS cancel the event and move it to later in the year. “As Phoenix arose reborn from the ashes, so has Aftenposten’s committee for the seminar in Oslo shaken off the effects of the Icelandic ash cloud and invites you, once again, to «Opera – Storytelling in Multiple Channels». The show must go on,” as the Norwegian organisors said in the invitation in SNDS Magazine 2010/2. On the last day of September 2010, more than 200 participants finally made it to Oslo. The dates had changed, and so had the logo – from the miniscule cursive design to a more robust orange sans serif look. The venue was the Hotel Opera vis-a-vis the brand new Opera House in the harbour. Among the speakers were Simon Ewing, the architect behind the new Opera, explaining how the main idea had been to create a building that the citizens of Oslo would be willing to use,

literally by walking all over it, and Juan Antonio Giner asking the question: “How can you handle new platforms when your IT people want to control everything?”

9–10 OCT

tition, initiated by committee chairman Anna Östlund (see SNDS Magazine no. 1, 2007, page 14-15). 31 new versions of the Swedish national symbol dalahästen entered the competition and later in the year travelled to Boston to their final destination – the Silent Auction at the international SND seminar.

Opening pages make use of photography with overlaid typography …

… or quick little video snippets to set the tone of the article.

Yellow divider pages between the articles makes it clear you are about to dive into a new story.

David Carson comments on questions asked in the text overlaying the video.

Mente – storytelling for An iPad only magazine explores the possibilities of the tablet – and of mixing storytelling techniques.

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Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

n +2 Designers, a Portuguese design studio, have released a free magazine created for the iPad only, published every three months. Mente is about music, people, design, culture, art, and places. But it is also a playground without limits for the studio. Partner in +2 Designers Vasco Colombo describes the main reasons for creating the magazine:

“First, some stories about people, ideas, and places can be better told with the help of new tools digital media brings. Second, we feel there’s still a lot of ground to break when it comes to publishing in tablets. News companies usually see tablets as a mere vehicle to their paper editions contents. We find those applications slightly dull. Poor sales apparently show readers also feel the same. We think there’s a long way to go until it’s clear for everyone what an iPad magazine is all about. And we

want to embrace that challenge. This kind of path needs lots of experimentation, which is impossible to make in projects for clients.” “We’ve been lucky enough to work for great clients and we couldn’t be more happy with them. However, there’s always compromise. Working on our own projects gives us the chance to follow our own instincts until the limit without the need for explanations or anything else. Saying ‘I’ll do it this way simply because I like it and I believe it

Fact boxes and additional info are hidden outside the edges of the screen – drag it into view with the yellow arrow.

If you loose your way or just want to jump to another story, tap the screen to bring up the player button and a thumbnail overview of the entire magazine.

Read the one-line text by dragging it across the screen while the underlying elements stay in place.

the finger and the eye flow of the content, making the video clips and animations equally important as the written text. The different storytelling techniques integrate smoothly – video is used to answer questions posed in the static text, like in the interview with grunge design guru David Carson. The in-depth articles, on the other hand, are designed in clear, legible type, so you will have no problems leaning back in your sofa to enjoy a long read. There are small surprises to be discovered as to what the finger can actually do in the app – for instance, on the opening page of the “Start making sense – a pretentious media obituary” article, if you swipe the background it

will take you to the next page, but is you swipe the headline, only the type moves to let you read the rest. Mente is an example of how graphic design can be used to create a specific atmosphere in a story, without sacrificing readability. Hopefully, not only Portuguese but also Scandinavian papers will be inspired by the simple, yet dynamic approach of +2 Designers. n

E Download from Apple App Store

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will work’ is something only possible on a project like this.” Vasco Colombo and Rachel Porto, who form +2 Designers, do not claim to offer definitive answers to any of those challenges. They are motivated by the creative process that, along the way, produces very interesting results. “Also, this know-how,” says Vasco Colombo, “ is something that we apply to specific jobs for clients when it makes sense to use it. We wish Portuguese papers were brave enough to launch a tablet-only publication!” Storyboards, rather than thumbnails, were used to plan the articles. This approach adds to the dynamic

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Mente

Awards Venue The festive Kameha Suite will host the Award ceremonies of the 36th International SND seminar and workshop in Frankfurt.

Save the date!

Photo: Kameha Suite

The 36th International SND Congress will be in Frankfurt, Germany, on September 26 and 27, 2014. The event will be held in Europe for the third time only, following Barcelona, Spain (1995) and Copenhagen, Denmark (1999). Stefan Knapp stefan.knapp@design-news.de

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n We

Germans love Scandinavian design. It is modern. It is clear. It is inspiring. All this communicates the liberty of the independent Nordic countries. That is why we are happy that Finland will be this year's Guest of Honor at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Cool! But we will be even more delighted if many colleagues from Finland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark join us at the 36th International SND Congress in Frankfurt, Germany. On September 26 and 27, 2014 – not even two weeks before the Frankfurt Book Fair – the Society for News Design (www.snd.org) welcomes all participants in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry Frankfurt am Main and will award the prize for “World's Best-Designed Newspaper” in

the festive setting of the Kameha Suite on Saturday evening. Make sure you register on time in order to engage in topics concerning Photo: Industrie- und Handelskammer Frankfurt am Main

Venue The impressive Chamber of Commerce and Industry Frankfurt am Main will host the conference and speaker sessions. E www.snd2014.de

the future of Design and Media in step with the times. The congress highlights how successful designers, publishers and media professionals work and offers participants all-around possibilities to get into contact and connect. (Learn from the best). In addition, the platforms “Arabian World”, “China”, “Brasil” and as special “The Empowerment of Females” enable a groundbreaking exchange which will at best lead to an international and intercultural study program “News Design”. Currently we are also expecting contributions from Africa and India. We look forward to receiving many entries for “See you in Frankfurt” from Helsinki, Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen. We look forward to exchanging inspiring ideas with the creative minds of the "Words Best-Designed Newspaper" and celebrating this event. Skål! See you in Frankfurt! n

Excellence Illustration for an article about radiation by Kadir Özmen, Istanbul.

Excellence Every winner is shown in the book. These two are in the Feature category.

gold winner One of the great photos in the Photography portfolio gold winner from Friday Magazine in Dubai, UAE.

judges’ remarks In little videos jury members give a firsthand impression of what they saw. Here Karl Gude.

»It might even be fun« News design in the Middle East is a pure fireworks show. Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

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n In

SND Region 20: Middle East and Africa* the results of the region’s 2013 news design competition has been published as an e-book, available for free in Apple iBook Store. The book shows all the winning pages, and includes a short introduction to the competition and short video statements from five of the 24 jury members, alle leading design professionals, most wellknown to the

SND community. The headline for this article is taken from one of the videos – a quote by judge Karl Gude, commenting on his observations during judging. Chapter 2 is devoted to four (written) interviews by country coordinator for Oman, Adonis Durado, who a.o. speaks to Mohammed Almezel, Managing Editor for Gulf News about the newspaper’s transition to the Berliner format, and to Osama Aljawish about the challenges in Arabic news design. All interviews are published in both English and Arabic. This is the first time a competition

* For more info about Region 20, see ”A multicultural region” in SNDS Magazine no. 2, 2011. Ehttp://kortlink.dk/drxw

has been held in the region. The competition received more than 650 entries from countries in the region; Iran, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Turkey, Egypt and Lebanon. Among the toal 151 winners were 5 Gold, 20 Silver, 21 Bronze, and 105 Awards of Excellence. Made me laugh in a good way It’s a real feast to swipe through the 243 pages of colourful, illustrative and elaborately designed pages – or, as one of the judges, Canadian design consultant and former SND President (2001)

The Best of Middle East News Design Editor/designer: Tarib Jariwala Publisher: SND20 243 pages Free in Apple iBooks Store

mission impossible The principle behind Frustro as Martzi Hegedűs illustrates it on his website (left) and a few of the additional symbols that are also part of Frustro’s glyph set, including the original Penrose Triangle.

Purely impossible Frustro, a new layered font designed by Hungarian designer Mártzi Hegedűs mimicks the perspective in Escher’s drawings of impossible objects. Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com n In

2008 Peter Biľak published his multi-layered font History*, giving the user hundreds of variations with just one installed font from 21 different styles that fit together perfectly. Hungarian designer Mártzi Hegedűs’ Frustro project works in a similar way. It is designed by layering outlines, inline fills and shades in the type – but with a twist: Each glyph is a 2D representation of an impossible three-dimensional shape. Originally designed in 2012 as a type experiment, Frustro is now published as a multilayer font by German font vendor Gestalten. Frustro is inspired by the Penrose Triangle, first created by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd (1915–2002) back in 1934. 20 years later, the English mathematician and philosopher Roger Penrose (1931– ) independently devised and popularised it, describing it as “impossibility in its purest form”. The Dutch graphic artist M. C. Escher (1898–1972) used the principle in his depictions of impossible buildings and objects. His 1961 litograph Waterfall** is a famous example. Martzi Hegedűs is a studying

* https://www.typotheque.com/fonts/history

graphic design at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest. He acknowledges the great masters who inspired him to create Frustro, the mathematicians as well as the artist: “Which part”, he says, “scientific or artistic, leads you more to the idea of creating an complex 3-dimensional typeface? I think both. […] I never graduated as an engineer, but I developed an interest in geometry and 3D modeling. And of course, I’m a big admirer of Escher’s work; however, I never thought I could make something new in this genre, since he pretty much maxed it out.” Frustro comes in six styles called Spaghetti, Fusilli, Cannelloni, Cason celli, Tortellini, and Tortelloni. Forget about Italic or Bold – because of the unusual nature of the font, normal style names gave little meaning: “Each weight got its name from a type of pasta and were paired by similarity. Also, pasta names suit well to Frustro due to the same Italian sounding”, Hegedűs says. The styles can be used as they are or in two-tone combinations by layering the styles in your documents. n E www.martzihegedus.hu E http://fonts.gestalten.com

** http://www.mcescher.com/gallery/impossible-constructions/waterfall/

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Lucie Lacava says in one of the videos: “One word comes to mind: Wow! What amazing work is coming from that region […] Some of the work made me laugh in a good way, there were some originality and great concepts being used.” According to Douglas Okasaki, SND20 regional director, the aim of the competition is to promote creative excellence and innovation in news design in the Middle East region. “We did the iBook primarily for the Middle East design community, but unfortunately the iBook is not available for the Middle East”, he says. “We wrote to Apple asking why – but they only answered that the marketing is not open for the region, which left me very frustrated. Now we are planning to make it as an Android app or find another solution. The book’s designer Talib Jariwala did a great job of optimizing it for a complete experience including video interview with the judges. There are plenty of possibilities but we really did not expect this restriction from Apple,” Okasaki says. Yours is a busy region – well-organ ized workshops and now competition. How do you see the future for SND in the Middle East? “It is a very large region thirsty for information, and although online is growing very fast, print is still strong. The future can be very bright considering that many countries are still fighting for the freedom of press and other basic human necessities more important than publishing,” Douglas Okasaki says. So while designers and others in the Middle East are waiting for the iBook to be available in the region, the rest of the world can enjoy the excellent combination of competition results and background information from the interviews. This iBook is a valuable contribution to the understanding of news design in the region, and there's a lot of inspiration to be found as well. n So, go get it – it's free!

SND: Redefining news design Phillip Ritzenberg, one of the SND’s founders and its only two-term president, was asked by SND’s Past President Rob Schneider to speak at the Awards Banquet at last year’s SNDLOU workshop, to help commemorate the organization’s 35th anniversary. Ritzenberg’s speech outlines the history of SND but also looks into the future. If you didn’t hear his great speech in person, here it is: Phillip Ritzenberg ritzenberg@optonline.net n You

may have heard it said that if you’re introduced in public you should recite two silent prayers. The first, to ask that the person making the introduction says some really nice things about you. And second, to ask forgiveness for liking it so much. Forgive me, but I did like it and I’m grateful to Josh for what he said. I also appreciate the hospitality of the leadership who have been sort of regarding me as you would an elderly visitor, which I guess I am. But in spite of the fact that I’m 82, I do still try to get work, and I split my own firewood, and, no, this is my own hair. Rob wanted one of the old-timers help mark the historical moment, since

1978: (July 16-20) The first Newspaper Design Seminar held at the API 1979: (January) – two-day meeting in Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania, a steering group is formed ”dedicated to the betterment of newspapers through design”.

1979: (May 22) SND is incorporated in the State of Pennsylvania as a 501(c)(6) non-profit trade association. 1982: (June) SND Headquarters are set up at The Newspaper Center in Reston, Va. SND hires its first full-time staff member.

■■ So

was the first real layout software — no, not Pagemaker, but Ready, Set, Go, which I still have in version 7.7.8. ■■ The first laser printer, from Apple of course, would not appear for six more years. ■■ And USA Today, the wake-up call for an entire industry, particularly in this country, would not be launched for another three years. Issue No. 1 of Design magazine, dated March 1980, appeared with a report of the Chicago workshop of September 1979. Remarkably, it had attracted 150 people from the U.S. and Canada — plus one from Costa Rica. Not bad for a brand-new group that still had no real address or phone number. So what was special? Reported in a magazine created almost single-handedly by the indefatigable

1997: The current name, the Society for News Design was adopted. 1998: New logo, designed by Lynn Wylie, a student at the Newcastle College of Art & Design (UK) Source: www.snd.org/about/history/ Founding fathers ost of the founders M of SND attended the first Newspaper Design Seminar at the API held on July 16-20, 1978.

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this is the 35th anniversary workshop and, in effect, the 35th anniversary of SND. But rather than walking down memory lane with people you never met — from before many of you were even born — I thought we could do that by looking briefly (I promise briefly) at three things: ■■ Why that 1979 workshop was so special. ■■ Why SND has mattered for 35 years. ■■ And why there may be an exciting future in store for many people in this room. The idea of 35 years may be pretty abstract for many of you, but if you had to do a little sidebar to put 1979 into a context, you might consider these bullets or points on a timeline: ■■ In 1979 the first Macintosh with that sensational 9-inch screen was still five years away.

Photo: snd.org

1979 The cover of the first SND workshop.

international network One of SND’s primary missions is to “provide a forum for critical review and discussion of issues”. The most visible example of this is the annual seminar and workshop, most often hosted in the US. Twice the workshop has crossed the Atlantic to take place in Barcelona (1995) and in Copenhagen (1999). The 2014 workshop will be in Frankfurt – thus once again emphasizing the importance of building an international network of understanding and exchange. In this photo from the 1999 Copenhagen event, Lucie Lacava (mouse in hand) is surrounded by her “Guru’s Night” crew from the Danish newspaper Berlingske (left to right): Pierre Banash, Birger Jelbo, Rie Jerichow, and Marianne Fajstrup. Photo: Liselotte Sabroe/SCANPIX new ideas — many of which we now see at work every day — for an industry whose products were chaotic, stultifying, and stuck at the turn of the century — the previous turn of the century. ■■ And it was probably the first audible rumble in a revolution, with SND out front on the barricades, that actually redefined the newspaper. Most of you missed that workshop. The next day after all was a school day. But it was pretty good for a start-up. Here’s the modest program: Max McCrohon, editor of the Chicago Tribune, was one of the few visionaries among newspaper editor back then. Maybe because he was an Australian and not an American. Anyway, he lent credibility to a small group of newspaper guerrilla warriors. Ed Miller, then publisher of the Allentown Call, was a kind of father to SND. He spoke on the ground-breaking work being done in Allentown. Howard Finberg, then Tribune graphics editor, now a distinguished member of the Poynter Institute faculty. The late Paul Back of Long Island’s Newsday on “Newspaper redesign: Who needs it, how to approach it.” His paper may been the first in America that banished those ugly pyramids and squared off its ads.

The late Lou Silverstein of the New York York Times, who was to become a very dear friend, thoughtfully admonishing us that designers will have to learn about newspapers and newspapers need to learn about designers. Myself, then at the New York Daily News, with a presentation that may sound like a museum piece today, but 35 years ago it was cutting edge: “New technology: The impact on the graphic journalist.” There were others: the late legendary Ed Arnold, prolific author and teacher of newspaper design; Robert Lockwood, another friend of many years, who was chairman of our little collegial group before we went on to get legal with a president and other officers; Ed Breen; Gus Hartoonian. I hope I haven’t forgotten somebody. Then with a stroke of confidence — maybe cockiness — it was announced that the 1980 workshop would be held in Washington and the year after that in New York. And we had yet to score a bank account. Rituals like these mean something only if the institution means something. SND matters And what makes me glad to be here is, not only that SND throws a nice party,

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Richard Curtis of Gannett was a full-blown workshop created almost single-handedly by the irrepressible Tony Majeri of the Chicago Tribune. And both were soon followed by the Best of Newspaper Design, 1980, the almost single-handed initiative of Johnny Maupin of Louisville. He called it First Edition and we just received the handsome 34th. For me that workshop, the first of 35, and that magazine, the first of more than a hundred issues of good design and typography and good journalism — yes, we showed that designers can actually write — these represent the beginnings of a spirit of volunteerism that still persists in SND. The kind of spirit that would make an apparently rational man like our president write about taking on SND leadership in that neat How 2 booklet this past summer, “…know that your primary mission will be to give,… expecting nothing in return.” But besides that quality some other important things happened: ■■ The infant workshop had the hubris to tackle issues affecting newspaper journalism that not been faced creatively even by the vaunted publishers’ and editors’ associations. ■■ It explored what were then radical

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but that SND matters. And it matters in several powerful ways: is without question the most interdisciplinary group in all of journalism and communications, or for that matter, most professions or industries. There is little danger of a one-track organizational mind with a membership of designers, managing editors, news, copy, sports editors, art directors, photojournalists, graphic artists, publishers, typographers, illustrators, reporters, web masters, professors, teachers, and, yes, even students. ■■ SND is the most youthful in age and, I’m sure you’ll agree, based on tonight’s lively party in spirit as well. ■■ SND also works hard at being international and racially diverse. ■■ It’s the most female industry group, which is why, I believe, it’s also the smartest. Thirteen women have served as president, and two of our long-ago presidents — Maggie Balough in Austin and Marty Petty in Providence were the first women to become editors of major American dailies. ■■ SND was a leader in convergence before anybody used that word — the convergence of technology and design, and its members, not production departments nor IT people, were among the earliest adopters and leaders of the digital news workplace. ■■ SND never forgot, especially in those early years, that while many sophisticated editors and publishers still didn’t get it, and thought that design was about prettification, we knew that the secret word was journalism and that it was all about design to enhance words and communicate information. ■■ And finally, SND was one of the major contributors to the revival — some would say the savior — of print journalism 35 years ago.

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■■ SND

The future But after looking back, we need to look ahead for the young people here, and we’re able to see some promising prospects unfolding. David Carr is the smart and prescient media columnist of the New York Times. You should never miss him on Monday’s business front. He has written that the web was gradually discovering that, besides pornography, news was the new killer app. So what’s ahead? There was a cracker-barrel philosopher and humorist called Josh Billings, the pen name of Henry Wheeler Shaw,

who wrote after the Civil War for the New York Weekly. In his day he was as well known as Mark Twain. In one of his great epigrams he said: “Don’t never prophesy, for if you prophesy wrong, nobody will forget it, and if you prophesy right, nobody will remember it.” But in spite of that warning, and contrary to the bad news bears of publishing, Carr wrote just last month that “A profound reset is under way. In more than a decade of covering the news end of the media business, I cannot think of a time of greater optimism or potential.” What he was talking about was that after years of fumbling leadership trying to work with old rules in a new environment and uninspired new owners dangerously playing at being media barons, Silicon Valley and its various power brokers are suddenly investing major amounts of money in quality news operations. Peter Omidyar, the founder of eBay, has just put $250 million into a new news site. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, is, for another $250 million, the new owner of The Washington Post. Laurene Powell Jobs, widow of Steve Jobs, has joined investors in a big news start-up. And there are others, too many to mention from here. The shared utopia of tech and news So technology and journalism, which Carr calls former antagonists, are about

to give bromance a try, with geniuses like Bezos and Omidyar leading the way. David Wright alluded to this in his outstanding presentation this morning. These guys, as Carr says, “have upended and reinvented entire legacy categories,” and just might be able to “reverse-engineer their skills into the production of news.” Maybe even, emulating Amazon, they can better plop a newspaper onto your doorstep. So the exciting thing for me — and I hope for you — is that many people in this room are going to be called on to do something even bolder than what was happening 35 years ago — and that is to radically re-invent the news media, especially the newspaper. Carr wrote: “This unfolding partnership will be fun to behold. For all their differences, the news and technology businesses share a kind of utopianism, an idealistic belief that the work of human hands can make life better for other humans.” n

Phillip Ritzenberg is a designer, editor, and publisher who has worked in news papers for almost six decades. He was awarded SND’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

Las Vegas Phil Ritzenberg receives SND’s Lifetime Achievement Award presented by then SND President Gayle Grin at the 2008 SND seminar and workshop in Las Vegas. The award was given ”for 50-plus years of service to the design industry. Ritzenberg was honored as an innovator and a tireless volunteer for the Society and designers. He has been a behind-the-scenes leader, helping found SND 30 years ago, and served as president from 1980 to 1982. Phil rose from a copy boy for the Cleveland Press in the early 1950s to be Assistant Managing Editor for Design at the New York Daily News, one of the first such management roles at a major U.S. newspaper.” Photo: Anders Tapola Source: www.snd.org/about/the-lifetime-achievement-award/

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SNDS Magazine 2014|1 In My Honest Opinion

Time to choose Flemming Hvidtfeldt fhvidtfeldt@yahoo.dk

n We choose every day. What to do, who to talk to, what to eat, who to care for and who not, what to wear or what to attend. Just a couple of weeks ago 13 judges had to choose, what they found best entries in the competition Best of News Design Scandinavia. They did choose, and I think they did a great job. What they chose to be the best will be published in October in Copenhagen, where we are going to have the next SNDS conference. People have been working and are still working to come up with the finest program ever. The title of the conference is FUSION and I promise you all, it’ll be FUSION the best way you have ever seen. Unfortunately SND – our mother organization from the US – has decided to have its conference just a week before ours. It wouldn’t have been a problem, if the conference was to take place in the US as normal, but this year it is going to take place in Frankfurt in Germany. Close to Scandinavia. I know that some Scandinavians go to the US to participate in the SND annual conference. But this year I hope that all Scandinavians will find the conference in Copenhagen so interesting, that this will be the conference they choose. Not to hurt the SND, but to help SNDS and hopefully to attend the best conference.

But you have to choose for real this year. SND or SNDS. Which one is it going to be. If you choose SNDS you’ll also help us in continuing being a Scandinavian design organization that cater the needs of Scandinavian news designers. To be fair, the conference is also an income for the organization and of course I wish that we have a great and big audience to every conference we make. We all benefit from it.

I have to mention that I have been talking to the SND board and I have expressed my worries of having two conferences so close – not in terms of dates but in terms of geographical distance. They fully understand the problem but have no possibility to change their schedule. I do also understand their view, so the only thing I can do is to ask all of you to be in Copenhagen instead of Frankfurt when it comes to fall. To choose homeground so to speak. It’s a question of choosing. And luckily enough it will be the only time you’ll have to choose. The Americans and I have agreed on that. In fact SND is discussing to move their conference to spring from 2015. So the problem will never occur again. But for now you have to choose. And when the program for FUSION is published in beginning of May it should be an easy choice for you. At least I think it will. But if you choose Frankfurt there will be no hard feelings. And maybe you’ll go to both conferences. Why you might ask. Because SND and SNDS are discussing the possibility of starting an idea in Frankfurt. Let a group of people work the idea and then publish the result in Copenhagen a week later. So don’t think we are enemies. We will work together. We face the same difficulties and we are both determined to solve them. In collaboration. Because our goals are in fact the same. And we have enough problems to solve. n Together.

IMHO Flemming Hvidtfeldt is SNDS President and chairman of the committee for the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition. He is a journalist at Midtjyske Medier.

Photo: lars aarø