SNDSmag 2014|2

2014|2

SNDSMagazine

Image by Lucy McRae and Johan Renck

Time – creativity’s best friend 3 FU2I0N14 speakers 6–13 Pop it up 14–19 That Scandinavian something 20–21 New design for award-winning journalism 22–23 The great Swedish format experiment 24–25 A lot to learn 26–27 Art for the sake of democracy 29 A font to save the planet 30 IMHO: Stop whining 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

Co-editor, Journalist DJ Lisbeth Tolstrup +45 51 32 89 62 mamamanus@mac.com

SNDSMagazine 2014|2

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

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ISSN 1901-8088

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

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: Suspended from a delicately constructed coat hanger construction floats a seven layered paper pixel textile of electro-pop icon Robyn, with the real Robyn knitted amongst her seven other selfs.

Constructed over two days by Lucy McRae and the Dream Team for Robyn’s third epic album in 2010. Image by Johan Renck and Lucy McRae. 2014|2

Print: Svendborg Tryk www.svendborgtryk.dk

SNDSMagazine

Editor, Art Director MD Lars Pryds +45 30 53 87 14 pryds@mac.com

Image by Lucy McRae and Johan Renck

Time – creativity’s best friend 3 FU2I0N14 speakers 6–13 Pop it up 14–19 That Scandinavian something 20–21 New design for award-winning journalism 22–23 The great Swedish format experiment 24–25 A lot to learn 26–27 Art for the sake of democracy 29 A font to save the planet 30 IMHO: Stop whining 32

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|2 Editorial

Time – creativity’s best friend

– David Bowie (Aladdin Sane, 1973)

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this place we have previously quoted some of the great masters of the advertising business. Sir John Hegarty* is one such master and shares his words of wisdom in a small book, Hegarty on Creativity – There Are No Rules, just published by Thames & Hudson.

In fifty witty chapters he writes about creativity – how to inspire it, how to sustain and perfect it, and how to make a living from it. Creativity is not an occupation, he says, it’s a pre­occupation. So his views touch far beyond the advertising world – and they are certainly relevant for the news business.

“Time may be one of creativity’s best friends, yet no one will give you any.

You have to earn it”, Hegarty says.

We live in a world today where tomorrow is too late – and the tight deadlines force you to make snap judgments and rapid decisions which often lead to poor work.

“The ability to stand back from your thinking and give it what we call ‘the overnight test’ is essential. […]

To gauge if your idea will stand up to scrutiny necessitates reflection. Thanks to digital technology everything in this world has sped up drastically but that only makes it all that much more important to slow it down. Our brains still operate in an analog world.”

Hegarty has a point here. Although some of us actually work best under some kind of pressure (be it from deadlines, well-meaning bosses or the need to earn money to pay the rent) it’s

SNDS conference 9–10 October 2014 Copenhagen, DK

Kill the routine Another way to keep your creativity alive is not to get stuck in the routines of your workday. It happens to all of us – coming into the office at the same time each morning, drinking your usual cups of coffee etc.

“If each day is business as usual how can you possibly create something un­usual?” Hegarty asks, and he’s got another point there.

His first easy step to break the monotony is to simply switch desks with a colleague (if you work in a newsroom with free seating, this is really easy – just pick a new seat each morning).

Just by moving across the room, you’re already looking at things from a different perspective.

If you really want to change habits, move to another city – or to another continent. This may, of course, involve

some practicalities, but relocating even for a month or two can be really stimulating – having just spent the month of May in Iceland is our personal proof of that.

In the mag The Fu2i0n14 conference is only four months away, and the program is shaping up. You can meet the first of a long list of great speakers on the next pages and more will be added to the line-up on the conference website at www.fusion.snds.org .

The spectacular cover photo for this issue of SNDS Magazine was created by one of the Fu2ion14 speakers, artist Lucy McRae with photographer Johan Renck. McRae built a coat hanger construction in seven layers with what she calls a ‘paper pixel representation’ of the pop icon Robyn for her Body Talk album. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to run this extraordinary photo on our cover and look forward to see more of McRae’s work on Fu2i0n14 in Copenhagen.

Photography is the subject for “That Scandinavian something” about the Norwegian photo festival DOK; we get an amazing look into the large pop-up book collection of Professor Michael Stoll, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences; we look behind the scenes of a Swedish experiment with print formats; Ole Munk reviews a new printed newspaper for kids; and k.dk was given a new design and a gold medal, all within the same month.

Enjoy it all, have a great summer – and don’t forget: If you have ideas for stories we should print in the magazine, give us a hint. n Lisbeth Tolstrup & Lars Pryds Editors, SNDS Magazine

* Sir John Hegarty is founding Creative Partner of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), one of the world’s most awarded advertising agencies.

Save the dates!

More info: fusion.snds.org

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Time, he’s waiting in the wings He speaks of senseless things His script is you and me, boy …

important to include time enough to let your idea grow.

In SNDS Magazine no. 2, 2012 the Swedish photographer Tor Johnsson said that his most important tool is time – “time to wait for the right picture, the right atmosphere to give justice to the motive”.

Time is also an important aspect of the many new longread formats that more and more news sites are launching next to their quick news feeds.

Research show that people are actually prepared to spend a large amount of time on in-depth stories online – but these take time to produce.

Do you get the time you need to make your projects develop to their full potential? Or, if you’re a manager – do you allow your staff enough time to get the work done properly? If your answer is yes! then I will worry no more, and speak no more of senseless things.

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Anna Thurfjell to Jyllands-Posten

PHOTO: STAFFAN LÖWSTEDT, SVD

Apple’s font change Despite its grand reputation, Helvetica can’t do everything.”

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PHOTO: APPLE.COM

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— Tobias Frere-Jones, type designer.

Apple Computer’s choice of font for the iPad and iPhone now impacts the company’s desktop models as well – for the next version of OSX will also use the Helvetica Neue – the font that has caused so much debate since its introduction in the iOS. Lucida Grande has been the choice of system font since the very first version of OSX back in 2001, but will now be ditched.

Not many font experts finds this a clever move.

The best explanation, perhaps, of why Helvetica is a bad choice is given by type designer Tobias Frere-Jones on fastcodesign.com: “It works well in big sizes, but it can be really weak in small sizes. Shapes like ‘C’ and ‘S’ curl back into themselves, leaving tight “apertures”–the channels of white between a letter’s interior and exterior. So each shape halts the eye again and again, rather than ushering it along the line. […] A super-sharp Retina Display might help, but the real issue is the human eye, and I haven’t heard of any upgrades on the way.”

Read the full story: E kortlink.dk/efbp

— Pierre Collignon, Editor-in-Chief of Danish Jyllands-Posten, announcing that the media house has hired Anna Thurfjell as their new head of design.

Anna Thurfjell is well known for her ten years at head of design Svenska Dagbladet, resulting in the newspaper being named both The Best Designed Newspaper in Europe (2009) as well as SND World’s Best Designed™ (2005).

Public lettering Every city finds expression and identity in its lettering. On grand monuments and humble shopfronts, letterforms convey the personality of their home as well their immediate content.”

— Tobias Frere-Jones, type designer.

Yes, Tobias made it into our small stuff page twice this time – but we simply had to bring you this link from his newly started blog over at frerejoness. com.

In his post, “Letters From Abroad”, Frere-Jones has collected an amazing list of links to websites and blogs documenting public lettering all over the world – from New York City to Bangladesh, and just about everywhere in between. From Scandinavia you can scroll through the “Signs of Stockholm”, “Copenhagen Type” or Hanne Ander­ sen’s “Ghostsigns Denmark” – a photographic journey through handpainted wall signs that have almost disappeared.

Prepare to spend hours at: E w ww.frerejones.com/blog/ letters-from-abroad/

PHOTO: LARS PRYDS

Jyllands-Posten will launch a new design in the autumn, a work that has already begun in cooperation with Palmer/Watson.

“I am thrilled to become part of Jyllands-Posten at this exciting time.

JP is the strongest news brand in Denmark, and now we are going to place it on the design map again,” says Anna Thurfjell.

“The thing I look forward to the most, however, is working in a team again, after having worked in my own company for a while. After all, what is a news designer without a newsroom?”

Anna Thurfjell replaces Erik Ambjørn, who was hired in January 2013 as the newspaper’s first head of design ever.

–pryds

Let other media break your news What makes a story great in a trade magazine may not always be the same as what makes it relevant for another media. Therefore, it’s a good idea to think in the target groups of other media: What has special relevance for them?“ — Maria Rørbæk, journalist at trade magazine Socialpædagogen, in her final thesis for the Diploma of Analytical Reporting at DMJX, Danish School of Media and Journalism.

The subject of the thesis is that specialist and trade magazines do not get much attention in other media like national television or newspapers, but it does not need to be so. Maria Rørbæk examines the problem and sums up her research in seven tips for trade media to get quoted more.

One obvious tip is to make high quality journalism, another to let other media break your story before you do it yourself – which may be a hard one to swallow, as most journalists intuitively want to be first with the news.

Read Maria Rørbæk’s seven tips on this link, where you can also order the full thesis (in Danish): –pryds E kortlink.dk/efhb

PHOTO: MARIA RØRBÆK

Anna Thurfjell is capable of all the skills required of a modern head of design. She can make the creative factory work on a daily basis. She understands the challenges of both newsprint and digital publishing, and she is able to secure a long-term design development supporting our brand.”

where strategy meets technology Let our world class publishing solutions accelerate your business strategy.

ccieurope.com

escenic.com

Fu2i0n14 speakers Over the next pages we present some of the magnificent speakers you will meet at the SNDS Fu2ion14 Conference. A special offer this year will be two exclusive masterclasses, both to be held on Thursday 9th October at 10am–1pm: n “Mobile UX Excellence”

with design expert and author Theresa Neil on UX Excellence on mobile platforms.

n “ The future magazine”

with news design experts Javier Errea and Rickard Franck on the future magazine.

PHOTO: STEPHANIE GRACE LIM

See general info on pages 12–13 and register now on fusion.snds.org where you will also find the latest updates to the program and new speaker announcements.

Matt Mansfield

Formerly Executive Editor, Digital for National Geographic

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n Matt

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Mansfield is an accomplished leader with experience in strategic planning, product management, digital (and print) development, reporting, editing and visual journalism.

In his former position he oversaw National Geographic’s editorial content across the Web and mobile and was responsible for the editorial experience on digital platforms – an area in which he has made a remarkable impact and rejuvenation.

He is past president of the international Society for News Design, Organizer for the Online News Association in Washington and former associate professor at Northwestern University, as well as Director and Bureau Chief for

the Medill School of Journalism’s program in Washington, D.C. And a former Deputy Managing Editor at the San Jose Mercury News in Silicon Valley. Also a partner in a design firm, with engagements in newspapers, websites, magazines and corporate communications.

With specialties as a well-known expert and mentor on news management, product development, design thinking, cultural communication, visual journalism and photojournalism you will not want to miss Matts presentation! n E twitter.com/mattmansfield

Michael Renaud

Creative Director, Pitchfork conducted the famous pyromanic photo session with Daft Punk in a parking lot in California. But first of all he is a non-bullshit humble and selftaught design of a hipster-site: Pitchfork.com – which will soon become a printed magazine as well!

Pitchfork is one of the most respected music news and review sites in the world and is immersed in Renaud’s visual brilliance and art direction.

Pitchfork has debuted a new type of article layout that eschews the everythingshouting-at-once approach of many editorial sites in favour of elegantly simple scrolling responsive layouts more in keeping with a Sunday supplement – although with video and animation used alongside photos and illustration. It’s a form that feels more natural for reading longer features, especially on a tablet – and is a form that after the popularity of the similarly artfuly laid-out Snow Fall story on the New York Times site, many have predicted as the future of long-form journalism on the web.

Renaud’s art direction of “Cover Stories” has design circles buzzing and he has been honored as one of Ad Age’s Creativity 50. Look forward to the wise words and stunning visuals from this lowkey but very inspiring speaker! n

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n Michael

E www.pitchfork.com

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Priya Prakash Director, D4SC

Schille is Art Director at dutch NRC Media and has worked several years as art director at Financial Times and recently Axel Springer Verlag. She has won numerous awards in the area of news design. n E www.nrcmedia.nl n Christine

E www.changify.org

Art Director, NRC Media

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works with studio prototyping/inventing mobile tech, social design and data-driven platforms that impact businesses, cities and citizens to create positive and profitable futures.

She is the founder of Changify – a crowdpowered platform for better neighbourhoods (self-funded). Featured in Wired, Tedx City 2.0.

Shortlisted for Zumtobel 2014 Applied Innovation and MEFFY’s 2013 biz model innovation and has 13 years hands-on digital product design, lead­er­ship and R&D expertise in bringing teams together to create award-winning products opening new markets for startups to brands – Flirtomatic, BBC, Nokia, Microsoft, Hachette Fillipachi, NESTA, Samsung.

Priya enjoys creating consumer-facing services that combine content, social media and crossplatform distribution in new formats. At BBC as implementation manager, innovation executive and UXD lead she worked on the launch of services such as iPlayer, Project Kangaroo and BBC Mobile portal. Later as Digital creative director at Hachette Filipacchi, she developed Sugarscape a social bookmarking site.

Having worked hard at getting traditional media companies to listen and engage in new kinds of conversations with their consumers, in 2008 she joined mobile startup Flirtomatic as Head of Product, to help drive user revenues and improve its user experience.

Prakash is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts with a MA in Interaction Design from Royal College of Art. n

Christine Schille

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n Priya

Theresa Neil

International design expert Neil is an international design expert based in Austin Texas. She is passionate about making products that look good and work well. Her top selling O’Reilly books, Designing Web Interfaces, coauthored with Bill Scott, and the Mobile Design Pattern Gallery have helped thousands of IT professionals advance their design skills and create better experiences.

Theresa and her team of experts work closely with clients to define and deliver UX solutions for complex problems. Having led the design for 100+ products in the last 13 years, Theresa knows the magic formula to rapidly designing and releasing successful products.

In 2013 Theresa was named one of the Top 75 Designers in Technology by Business Insider, coming in at #28.

Besides her presentation, Theresa will also teach a three-hour masterclass on mobile UX excellence on thursday the 9th – more on that to come! n E www.theresaneil.com

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n Theresa

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STILLS “Swallowable Parfum Live Lab” (top image) is a short film created at a four week Summer residency. Bottom images are stills from “Be My Yoko Ono”, a music video for Danish pop group Reptile Youth. Photos: lucymcrae.com

Lucy McRae

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Artist

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n Lucy McRae is a Body Archi­ tect exploring the relationship between the body, technology and the grey areas of synthetic and organic materials. She invents playful, imaginary worlds steered by complex scientific challenges to create portals of possibility that provoke the way people embody the future. Her clients include Channel 4, Levi’s, Philips, Swarowski and Vogue.

Trained in classical ballet and interior design, Lucy staked her claim as the world’s premier Body Architect during

her formative years at Philips Design.

Working in the far future design research lab she developed stretchable electronics, an electronic tattoo and a range of emotional sensing dresses awarded Time’s Best Fashion Invention in 2007.

Operating on the fringes of magic, emotion and intuition her projects use speculative storytelling to evoke and catalyse innovation and transformational shifts within the art, biotech, beauty, healthcare and life sciences. Interfacing

the body with the spheres of architecture and science Lucy seeks to discover the unexpected, convinced epiphany is a crucial link in creativity and innovation.

Perhaps partly because of the intriguing ambiguity of her job description or the unconventional duality of her artistic study of tech­ nology Lucy McRaeis listed as one of the fifty people shaping the future. n E www.lucymcrae.net

Oliver Reichenstein

Founder and CEO of Information Architects n Oliver

Reichenstein is the founder Information Architects (iA), a global design leader with offices in Tokyo, Zurich and Berlin. iA are highly regarded not only for their redesigns of high-profile media outlets but also for their best-selling iA Writer app or the iconic Web Trend Map. With their work on the long-overdue reinvention of the word processor, their research in responsive web typography and their lucid and ultra-clear user experience design work for major newspapers iA and Oliver are shaping nothing less than the future of how we read and write. n E www.ia.net

Carolina Laudon Type designer

E www.laudon.se

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n Carolina Laudon is a Swedish typographer and type designer living in Gothenburg, Sweden. After art studies in Stockholm and London she finalized her MA in Graphic Design in 2000.

Since then she has worked in her own type studio, focusing on type design and typographic work. For seven years she was also responsible for all typographic tutoring at the Konstfack University of Arts in Stockholm. She is a member and country delegate to the global typographic association ATypI. Carolina Laudon received The Berling Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious typographic design-prize, for 2012.

Her work includes some of the most used corporate typefaces in Sweden, like Monopol for Systembolaget, DN Bodoni and DN Grotesk (together with Pangea Design). Other clients include Volvo AB, Arla, White Architects, Insurance company If and design agency F&B Happy and Identity Works as well as ad agency F&B. Carolina also has a long record of book design and book typography, as well as graphic design work. n

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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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REGISTER SIGN UP FORNOW 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!

Pop it Up Mechanical models and pop-up pages live on in today’s children’s books, in nonspecialist anatomical and technical contexts but this peculiar publishing and graphic genre had a very different role at the end of the industrial revolution. Professor Michael Stoll, from Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, tells their story, and shows rare examples of pop-up books from his huge collection.

Michael Stoll mstoll@hs-augsburg.de today’s information providers sticking largely to standardised production methods or screen-based forms of presentation, it’s worth casting our minds back to the end of the industrial revolution, to an era in which there was almost unlimited enthusiasm for technological advances and a wide audience wanting to be kept abreast of developments. With medicine also taking huge strides forward, it was an age that gave rise to many new specialist journals and saw the birth of many a popular-science textbook.

For those whose schools had such a place, being sent on an errand to the map room remains one of the strongest memories of their school days. Not just because the walk there and the retrieving of the required map both ate up classroom time, but also because of the weird and wonderful things lined

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up on its shelves and windowsills, be they fishes or frogs or mice or martens, either preserved whole or in partially dissected form. These real-world specimens communicated knowledge far more vividly and memorably than any textbook ever could.

What’s more, such rooms were filled to the ceiling with mechanical models – items such as a carious tooth that looked reasonably healthy from the outside, but that, upon removal of the front half, revealed internal decay extending right down to the nerve, or a human eye, five times larger than in real life and assembled like a set of Russian dolls, with layers that could be opened up one after the other to show the organ’s various components and their interdependence.

Mechanical books In an era of technological and medical advances, publishers of magazines, textbooks and educational maps strove to keep the general public abreast of de-

velopments with mass-market publications – and the industry boomed.

What’s more, in their tempts to convey the latest developments, publishers didn’t simply limit themselves to superficial illustrations that would struggle to do justice to the complex and often abstract nature of the subject matter. After all, the most interesting aspects would not in any case be visible to the reader, being hidden behind the myriad rods and pistons of a 70-horsepower diesel engine, within the hull of a twin-propeller steamliner or behind the lacquered fascia of a four-tube radio receiver.

As a result, though many of the era’s textbooks (which often ran to multiple volumes) were chiefly printed in black and white, readers would occasionally find, hand-glued into the book, colour lithographic prints providing explanatory illustrations or infographics. Even they, though, often failed to adequately represent or explain such subject matter.

As a result, textbook publishers

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In the two photos (left) we take a look under the skin of a horse. The illustration (right) shows the inside of a milking station should look like – complete with ornamented steel columns and elaborate wall decorations to ensure good milk. Above: the bones, viscera, and muscles of the cow, pig, and horse. Photos: Michael Stoll

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DISSECTING ANIMALS Dr. Knoll’s “Neue Tierheilmethode” [“New Veterinary Methods”] from 1923, with 600 images, 62 chromo- and art print plates and 10 fold-out pictures, is a prime example of how pop-up pages not only can give an overview, but also a closer look into the details of each “layer” of information.

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came up with a pseudo-three-dimensional form of graphics that saw layers of lithographic prints placed one on top of the other and stuck to the edges of the page with adhesive tabs. These movable illustrations, printed in colour on both sides and sometimes die-cut into shape, were often mounted on thicker card before being inserted into the textbook or, more commonly, collected in special atlases.

The roots of this unusual form of infographic can be traced back to the 16th century, when they were primarily

used to publicise the latest anatomical discoveries (as in Andreas Vesalius’s “De humani corporis fabrica”, 1543).

Then as later, these fold-out graphics were based on and designed in the established graphic style of the day.

A picture or illustration, acting as a kind of eye-catcher, would conceal layer upon layer providing insights into things not normally visible to the naked eye. The individual layers varied in size from large, complete pictures to small depictions of components or body parts often measuring just a few square

centimetres – all made out of paper and hand-assembled.

Visual interpretations of reality In the mid-19th century, these earlier examples provided the inspiration for a boom in movable models that lasted until the 1920s. In the 1930s, publishers then began using photographs instead of drawings but, soon after, the printing of individual layers onto transparent sheets of acetate became the chief means of creating such models – at least in the scientific field.

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SO YOU THINK PRINT HAS NO IMPACT? A Hamburg based designer recently sent me a 1939 copy of the first Volkswagen – back then called KdF-Wagen – the original with the Swastika in a logo (not shown here). This booklet is considered one of the most famous in transart design. Differently from similar booklets, in this one axonometric perspective is used – so we are switching from bird’s eye perspective on the front side of a page (pages on the right) to frog’s eye perspective (pages on the left). A funny detail is that the figures in the illustrations look really really hyperrelaxed. Photos: Michael Stoll

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out cavities, cut-away gum tissue and exposed nerves – knows how sensitively lay readers need to be introduced to such subjects in order to avoid a reflexive negative reaction. That was even truer then than it is now. Movable models allowed curious readers to access knowledge in a way that was appropriate to their socialisation, that enabled them to acquire this knowledge in manageable doses, digesting the information bit by bit and flicking back and forth at their leisure.

From the publishers’ point of view, mechanical text books were of interest for a variety of reasons: often their models were the only way readers could gain such information because the subject itself, a steam locomotive engine, for example, existed only in small quantities and could not simply be taken

apart for study purposes, while social taboos around sex education helped to ensure there was ample interest in nonspecialist anatomical illustrations.

Overcoming the book’s limitations Sadly, very little is now known about the planning, manufacture and assembly of these mechanical models. Who decided on the form and content of each model, how, when and by whom were they put together, and how were

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What the various types of model had in common was that they were all graphical visual interpretations of reality. Intended to provide well thoughtout and carefully arranged depictions of a subject that, when looked at closely, could otherwise be somewhat confusing, these models offered generalised, schematic representations of reality rather attempting to precisely replicate the minutiae of the original.

Often the subjects are thus shown not in their true colours, but in colour schemes chosen for aesthetic reasons or to adhere to representational conventions, such as red for oxygenrich and blue for oxygen-poor blood.

Anyone who has ever flicked through a modern-day medical textbook – say a dental prosthetics manual featuring high-resolution photographs of drilled-

IT’S ALL IN THE HEAD ”Der Kopf des Menschen – in zerlegbaren Abbildungen” [“The human head – in detachable images”]. A short, easily comprehensible representation of the individual parts of the human head with explanatory text, edited by Dr Ergo, published by J. F. Schreiber, Esslingen & Munich, ca. 1913.

Photos: Michael Stoll.

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they then integrated into the body of the book?

What we do know is that they were a welcome opportunity for publishers both to extend their didactic range and to overcome the limitations of the book as a format. Folded up because of their size, some models had to be unfolded before or during use: if, for instance, a human torso was mounted on the cover board, the reader would be able to fold out the head at one end and the limbs at the other.

There may be entirely pragmatic reasons for such constructions, but if we watch how users approach the models, we can sense the great care and respect with which they apply themselves. Having recognised the fragility of the model, they concentrate so intensely on feeling for the uppermost layer of folding parts (and the direction in which they unfold) that the process automatically gains an almost immersive quality.

UNDER THE HOOD G. Ripke’s “Der Praktische Maschinenbauer” [“The Practical Machine Builder”], ca. 1910, shows what’s under the hood of a modern steam locomotive (bottom), or how an automobile with gas engine (top right) is constructed.

Photos: Michael Stoll.

Using the key in conjunction with the corresponding numbering of the model’s parts turns out to be rather more complicated, it proving somewhat tricky to flick back nd forth between key and model, the latter unfolded and held carefully in the reader’s hands, with instructions mostly being conspicuousy their absence. In its 1913 booklet Der Kopf des Menschen in zerlegbaren Abbildungen [The Human Head in Fold-Out Illustrations], the firm J. F. Schreiber did at least solve the problem of identifying the correct order in which the various parts should be unfolded, the publisher giving each fold-out layer its own numbered tab.

Topographical anatomy Unlike today’s imaging processes, which are by and large technical procedures (such as x-ray technology and the shadow-like images it creates on photographic material), these anatomical and technical movable models were

not just ahead of their time, they were also the result of a deliberate analytical and design process on the part of their creators. This is something we can see particularly clearly if we take a closer look at the images on the individual layers. These differ from the kind of histological samples used by biologists or from the technical cross-sections an engineer might recognise.

While models whose layers could be peeled back like those of an onion to reveal the next level down did exist, these were less common than the kind of model in which the subject matter was divided between the various flaps: skin, skeleton, muscle groups and internal organs, for instance, were presented as distinct three-dimensional worlds, despite in reality being interconnected with each other. Experts refer to such renderings as “topographical anatomy” – interestingly, a term they also use for atlases of technical models.

Very occasionally, publishers used

Pop-up revival While mechanical models live on in today’s children’s books, in nonspecialist anatomical and technical contexts their role was, from the 1940s, generally fulfilled by less complex forms of presentation, such as photographic reproduction, infographics and imaging processes. The standardisation of offset colour printing brought together production processes that had previously

only been possible in parallel, such as hot-metal typesetting and lithographic colour printing.

Around 1920, searching for alternatives to mechanical models, publishers began to turn to a material that had previously played a key role in the development of photography, using flexo-printed layers of acetate to create illustrations that would not otherwise have been economically viable.

Early examples can be seen in Baillière’s Synthetic Anatomy, a book in which the individual sheets are bound together via file hole punching. Important works with directly integrated acetate-sheet graphics included the anatomical atlases designed by Gladys McHugh – The Human Eye in Anatomical Transparencies (Bausch & Lomb Press, 1943) for example – and technical titles such as Practical Car Owner from 1956 (Frank Preston, Douglas Clease; Grosvenor Press (England) Ltd.). Since the mid-1980s, led by volumes such as The Facts of Life, A Three-Dimensional Study

by Jonathan Miller and David Pelham, pop-up books on anatomical subjects have been experiencing something of a revival. The current high water mark in the anatomical field, however has to be the Google Body (now Zygote Body) web app first unveiled by Google in 2010, via which users can explore rotatable 3D models of the male and female bodies by making different layers transparent. n This article was originally published in FORM no. 253.

Printed with kind permission.

Ewww.form.de See also: Looking back: Page through Michael Stoll’s treasure island of infographic textbooks by John Grimwade on snd.org Ewww.kortlink.dk/eftx

Michael Stoll studied communication design at the Konstanz University of Applied Sciences, writing his thesis on the subject of infographics and their classification.

E Since 2005, he has taught at the design faculty of the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, lecturing in media theory, infographics and information design on both its bachelor’s and master’s programmes.

E As Educational Director (intl. Affairs) of the Society for News Design in the US, he coordinates the academic dialogue between member colleges.

E He is also a member of the International Institute for Information Design in Vienna and of the Editorial Board of the Information Design Journal (John Benjamins Publishing Company).

E Michael Stoll collects historic infographics and has amassed one of the largest collections of such material, the highlights of which can be seen in his travelling exhibition “History of Infographics”.

Efacebook.com/prof.michael.stoll

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the principles of mechanical models to visualise chronological processes. An example of this can be found in the book Neue Tierheilmethode [New Veterinary Methods] (Dr. Knoll, Friedrich Maack Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig, 1923), in which the author uses fold-out drawings to illustrate how the features of a horse’s head change over the years.

The didactic benefit of mechanical models lies chiefly in the fact that they gradually add to the reader’s picture of the subject as they are unfolded, and that they do so in such a way as to maintain the balance between detail and overview, primarily because the moving parts are overlaid over a basic drawing that remains visible as the layers are unfolded.

Knowledge is thus imparted in distinct but not isolated “chapters”: the relationship of the folded-out parts to the whole can still be easily determined or the model easily returned to its starting position by simply folding the movable parts back in. The individual layers were mostly cut into a particular shape, the outline of a lung for instance, and often featured cut-away internal sections. This helped to fix the form of the object in the mind of the viewer. As for the reverse of such layers, this was rarely left blank, instead showing, at the very least, the other side of the featured object or, more often, presenting additional information.

REVIVAL “The Human Body”, designed by David Pelham, illustrated

by Harry Willock and published 1983

by Jonathan Cape Ltd. is a recent example of the revival of the pop-up book for popular science.

Photos: Michael Stoll.

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PARAGON AND PARR Martin Parr (sitting) shares his views on the Paragon Features project and the edit of their book “Fra Ungdommen” with Martin Slottemo Lyngstad (from left), Ellen Lande Gossner, Thomas Borberg, Anton LIgaarden and Lars Andreas Øverli. Photo: Paragon Features

That Scandinavian Can a small Norwegian town change the way we approach Scandinavian photojournalism?

Helle Gannestad hellegannestad@gmail.com Line Ørnes Søndergaard line.sondergaard@gmail.com

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n It

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is early morning in a small town in eastern Norway. As the mild May sun casts its first rays on the squares surrounding the House of Literature in Fredrikstad, the Danish emerging photographer Sofie Amalie Klougart sits down with a group of photojournalism students. And with a low voice she says the words we’re all thinking.

– You’re about to enter a fucked up industry – which is super frustrating, but also excitingly freeing.

But first… why are we here? This Danish hotshot, the Norwegian students? We’re all a part of the documentary photography festival DOK. A festival that started out in Oslo in 2005, but moved to Fredrikstad last year. At that time we were about fifty

Norwegian photographers who visited the renewed DOK festival. This year over two hundred paying guest found their way to the small town – not only visitors with photojournalistic background, but also others with a keen interest in photography. The pop-up exhibitions had thousands of visitors.

And also, a big difference from last year, Scandinavia came knocking.

Stars and starts It is worth to take notice that this festival does not only give us the award winning pictures portfolio slideshows.

We’ve seen those before. This year’s line-up gave us the other side of things.

The process, the glimpses into the future role of the visual journalist.

Combining superstars like Martin Parr, Alec Soth and Andrea Bruce with emerging big shots like Sofie Amalie Klougart and Sara Naomi Lewkovicz.

Adding some of those magnificent, but not yet that well-known photographers, like Danish press photographer of the

year, Joachim Adrian, and video documentarist Anton Ligaarden to the mix gave the festival a broader perspective on the photojournalistic process and made room for sharing experiences and learning from each other. And most importantly, it opens up for a dialogue about the journalistic photography. In Norway, Scandinavia and worldwide.

Fredrikstad is not Perpignan The name is not as fancy, neither are the local bubbles. But it’s Scandinavia as we know it, low key and down to earth. If the festival-founders’ dream comes true, the DOK-festival will be the Scandinavian version of the famous festival in the south of France.

Hopefully they manage to keep the feeling of being part of an intimate circus with superstars showing their raw files and work in progress instead of edited portfolio. A place where Mister Parr sits down with three young photographers to help them edit their first book. Where young kids are included

THE EXHIBIT The photojournalist caravan made a stop in Fredrikstad. Photojournalist student Line Søndergaard exhibited the project “Hviletid” on sleeping truck drivers in a trailer. Photo by Thorstein Bøe.

something Being alone together This year the DOK-festival in Fredrikstad created an longed for and informal arena for photojournalistic debate and development in Scandinavia. It gave us the opportunity to look at and to each other. And seeing ourselves through our neighbours’ eyes. Finding that Scandinavian something that differences us and ties us together The photojournalists, journalists, designers, and art directors are all in, or about to enter, an industry that is going through massive changes. As Sofie Amalie Klougart pointed out, when we, the students, are taking our degree through the doors of the school, we’re not entering the doors of any newspaper. We are entering an everyday of outsideness, outside the papers, outside the editorial rooms and outside the

newsroom as we know it. A lot of us are already there, alone, as freelancers.

So this festival is somewhat our Christmas party – where the stars are undressed, where we meet in another way than out in the field. Where we don’t need to be sellers or buyers or competitors. But colleagues. In a time where the industry is all about the survival of the fittest, it is even more important to find new ways to cooperate, to meet and together manage to develop our craft.

We missed you Photojournalism is no longer just pictures on a page. It is a vital part of the final visual product, combined in many ways and shown on different platforms.

So… we missed some voices in the discussions this year. We – photojournalists, designers, and developers – need to develop a common, visual language that the rest of the world also understands.

The DOK festival is aiming to be a festival for all who work with visual journalism. Hope to see you next year!

And as the mild May sun casts its last rays over the rooftop terrace in this little town in eastern Norway all these “alone” people come together for overpriced beers. Slowly starting the discussions that will develop into debates about the role of the documentary photograph in the future. The exciting one, to end on Klougarts note. n Helle Gannestad and Line Ørnes Sønder­ gaard are studying photojournalism at Oslo University College. This fall they’re starting their third and final year.

DOK:14

22–24 May 2014 The Norwegian festival for documentary photo and poto journalism. The world’s best documentary photographers gather in Fredrikstad. The festival is organised by Pressefotografenes klubb Norge.

DOK:15 will take place 1–7 June 2015 E dokfestivalen.no E facebook.com/dokfest

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through workshops and exhibitions, and the students are invited to participate and to show their work. Then this will be the festival that looks to the future.

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New design for award­ winning journalism Kim Schou schou@k.dk Simon Johansen simon@k.dk there was light.

Thick blue bars, grey squares, crabbed old-fashioned typefaces disappeared and were replaced by a clean more streamlined look. A brighter look.

Kristeligt Dagblad’s website launched a new design in May. Changing the paper’s main website and the sister pages religion.dk, kristendom.dk, etik.dk and pilgrimsvandring.dk at the same time is a major operation: We’re talking about 550.000 articles, 1000 theme pages a lot of cover pages and a lot more.

If you take a look at the website you will find that it looks more like the paper version of the publication.

Chief of onlineTroels Behrendt Jørgensen is proud of the result.

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n And

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User experience in focus “I hope that difference between Kristeligt Dagblad in paper and Kristeligt Dagblad online is now smaller than ever. Our ambition is that the user experience is the same in print and online and that our users get the same quality and journalism whether they use their mobile phone, their iPad, or read the printed paper,”he says: “We have put much effort into creating an online design that matches the graphic feeling of the print paper – but of course on the terms of online.

Furthermore, we have tried to simplify every aspect of the subscribers’ self service interface.”

The design was made by Danish web company Propeoples’ designer Igor Putina, who lives in the capitol of

NEW WEBDESIGN FOR K.DK Kristeligt Dagblads fleet of websites now share a design with their printed versions of the publication.

May 2014 was a busy month for Kristeligt Dagblad. In an effort to harmonize the look across all platforms the Danish publishing house changed the design of its websites – and won several awards at the Danish news design competition, among these a Gold Award for a multimedia story in the Open Web Class category.

Award winning journalism Kristeligt Dagblad was a Gold winner, when Danske Medier, the Danish trade organisation for media held its annual competition in May. The Gold was awarded for the special theme story “A one-way ticket to Zurich” (“En enkeltbillet til Zürich”).

The purpose of the competition is to focus on the good work in Danish print and online media, says Kamilla Harritsø who is head of development in Fynske Medier, and chairman of the

competition committee for ther Web Media of the Year 2013.

“In online media, we have been looking at user interface, interaction, and the exploitation of the possibilities of the media,” she says.

Kristeligt Dagblad’s story “A one-way ticket to Zurich” about Kjeld Rasmussen, who travels to Schwitzerland to get help to die, focuses on assistive death help and tells Kjeld’s story in sound, text, and images. The story was written

by Line Vaaben with photographs by Leif Tuxen and the digital storytelling laid out by Kim Schou.

“It is a fantastic story,” says Søren Knudsen, PR and communication consultant and member of the jury.

“This is the first time a story like this has been prepared exclusively for the web. Normally, this kind of journalism will be printed in the newspaper and then afterwards transferred to the web. In this case it is obvious that it was planned how the story would be presented in the best way possible, Søren Knudsen says.

He sees “A one-way ticket to Zurich” as a prime example of digital journalism, that the entire business should feel inspired by.

In the official argumentation for the award the jury says, “Lots and lots of digital elements – like the automatic sound that starts when scrolling down the page, facrt boxes in the right places, and the use of Soundclouds make this story one of the best (maybe the best) story ever told digitally.” n Kim Schou is a digital content producer and journalist at Kristeligt Dagblad.

Simon Johansen is a BA student at Center for Journalistik, Syddansk Universitet and currently a trainee at Kristeligt Dagblad. Ewww.k.dk

GOLD, THE JURY SAID “A beautiful example of digital storytelling at its best and most efficiently excuted. Very simple and freed from noise. It is a good thing that advertising has been removed from the pages – a brave and necessary move to make the strong story be told in the best way.”

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Moldavia, Chisinau. Putina has worked with the design in an eight-week workshop with the editors in 2013 and he has also worked with the newspaper’s regular designer Ole Munk, who has developped the print paper’s award winning design of the paper for ten years.

About the new look of the website Ole Munk says: “We think that the users will appreciate the shared look of the different platforms of Kristeligt Dagblad platforms. Therefore, we have made the design of k.dk adapt the structure of the print paper – the way the front and article pages are designed – a structure that the readers are rather satisfied with. Our goal is that the user feels at home in the visual environment of Kristeligt Dagblad, regardless of which channel you choose to access the paper through. In other words: on paper or online.”

More and more people read the paper online, says Troels Behrendt Jørgensen: “The web version becomes more and more important, but so do our apps.

The number of digital subscriptions in increasing, a lot actually in recent years.

We now have a total of about 1,000 digital subscribers.”

23

The great Swedish format experiment

It’s a little bit sad in Sweden right now what concerns news design. Media companies are establishing design hubs to design all the newspapers in one place.

Media companies are also dressing all the newspapers with the same costume, so they all look like a one-size-fits-all-costume from Dressman. And every newspaper in Sweden –except one – has the tabloid format.

Anders Tapola anders.tapola@smp.se n It

was therefore a big surprise when Swedish Journalist Associations magazine Journalisten issue number 3 landed in the mailbox on March 6 on their 110th birthday. Because it was a broadsheet!

And the top story had the headline “Format changes had no effect”, and refers to a study done by Ulrika An-

dersson, at Göteborg University, who has investigated what happened after all the newspapers in Sweden switched to the tabloid during the first decade of the 2000.

Her conlusion is: “Today, the format is a non-issue for the Swedish newspaper readers. Instead, it is the content which is completely in focus for the readers.”

The study shows that the big tabloid boom in Sweden hasn’t had any positive effect on the circulation.

And now the big discussion about format (and content) started in Sweden, for sure.

Smells like the stone age Issue number 4 of Journalisten from March 27 had a very rare and narrow format: 14,5 cm x 39,5 cm. The height is an ordinary swedish tabloid. But the width is just half of a tabloid.

Page 3 in this issue was full of reactions on the previous broadsheet issue, like: “Powerful feeling!”, “How

Smaller is better

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The readers of Journalisten prefered the half tabloid (17,5 cm x 25 cm) – 35% voted for that format. In second place came the ordinary tabloid format with 30% of the votes, the broadsheet got 25%, and the narrow tabloid only 8%. And 2% of the readers want a completely different format. 456 readers voted for their favourite format on journalisten.se

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JUST CHECKING Journalisten made three different formats during the spring. In the top right corner is the ordinary tabloid-format. Photo: Anders Tapola.

Vote for your favourite format Issue number 5 published April 17 was a also a half tabloid in size, but this time: 17,5 cm x 25 cm. And the reactions on the former format was: “The Swedish Journalisten in half tabloid...?. Or what is the format called?. Very much cult, I think”, “How will the next format of Journalisten look like? Smog signals?”, “Reader-friendly and neat. And it fits perfectly in the purse”, “Looking forward to the next issue of Journal-

isten. Round? Transparent? Eatable, maybe made of marzipan? Whittled in some heavy material? The last issue was mightily! This is fantastic paltry! Love that Journalisten makes me smile!”

And by this issue the experiment was over. And the editors of Journalisten now wants the readers to vote on which format they prefer.

And when issue number 6 was published May 15 they went back to their original tabloid format. And this time they invited three professional news designer to evaluate the form experiment: Pelle Andersson, AD at A4, Johanna Jonsson, AD at Vi läser, Lars Rodvaldr, AD at the design bureau R.ED. They discussed not only strengths and weaknesses of different formats, but also issues like if the journalism is changing when you are changing

format, format trends in the past and in the future and what’s important to keep in mind when changing formats or doing a redesign.

And the disussion continues. n The format experiment was done mainly because Journalisten is preparing a redesign this fall and wanted to have reactions. The design was the same in all three issues, only the format was changed. It will be interesting to see what format, and of course design, they will choose. Åsa Widén, AD and newspaper developer at Kate redaktionell design, made Journalistens templates for the three different formats in the form experiment.

E www.journalisten.se

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fun, bold and educational!”, “Keep the broadsheet!”, “A smart way to start a discussion about format and content.

Made me read Journalisten with brand new eyes.”, “Im sorry Journalisten, the experiment smells like the stone age”, “I like Journalisten in broadsheet. But it’s so unpractical to read”.

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A lot to learn

In the midst of what looks like an overall system change towards digital media, new printed newspapers addressing young readers pop up as surprising success stories.

Berlingske’s contribution to this counter-trend, however, needs some fine-tuning.

Ole Munk ole@ribmunk.dk n Not

often have my intentions to keep a positive attitude been as strong as when I held the first issue of Berlingske’s newspaper for children in my hands. I really like the idea of reporting news in a way that appeals to those who shall take over the world from us, as well as trying to put all those scary stories into a perspective that might, hopefully, make them a little less frightening.

Yet now, after having seen the first three issues of Kids’ News’, staying positive feels somewhat harder and my dominant feeling has changed to a hope. My hope is that the many weaknesses of this new paper should be seen mainly as childhood diseases, and that things will soon change for the better.

How to communicate with children The editors have mentioned Aftenposten Junior as their main source of inspiration. Comparing the two might still be unfair; after all, the Norwegian paper has had two years to establish itself as a surprising success story. On the other hand, the 2013 Newcomer of the Year in Norwegian media seems more

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SPREAD THE WORD Kids’ News (left) and Aftenposten Junior both try to capture the young readers.

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thoughtfully conceived and, first of all, appears to be produced with far more resources – and talent – than its Danish counterpart. And the question is to what extent the latter can use startup problems as an excuse for that.

Kids’ News leaves an impression of something being made half-heartedly.

It also looks as if the Danish editors have a completely different perception of children – who they are, what they can be expected to be interested in, and how to communicate with them – than their Norwegian colleagues.

Here’s a few examples. Images are an obvious part of the toolbox when addressing this target group. In Aftenposten Junior, you won’t find one photo or illustration that is not being explained and expanded with chunks of text to satisfy the curiosity of young readers. Captions are a no-brainer, but the paper frequently adds valuable – and fun – bonus info, such as small written elements inside the photo. Like, now I know that the Norwegian Oil Foundation’s boss is named Yngve and that he is fifty-one and a half years old.

The fact that visuals and words are so closely integrated provides Aftenposten Junior with a general comic-striplike appearance that helps convey the

stories in a very direct, unpretentious, and pedagogical manner.

Then have a look at the average Kids’ News story and you’ll see three to six photos which appear not to have been selected with communication as the main priority; half of them are not even accompanied by a caption; and the visual arrangement leaves the impression that the focus has been on avoiding to look boring, rather than on effective storytelling.

Heavy on the light-weight Both papers contain a mixture of actual news stories and stuff that might appear in any media aimed at young readers, like Anders And/Kalle Anka/ Donald Duck. However, Kids’ News devote more pages than its Norwegian equivalent to entertainment, fashion, animals, sports, and similar “lightweight” material that almost make the “real” news appear like some kind of justification stories, meant to legitimize that you call the product a newspaper even though you may not thoroughly believe in the concept.

One more thing to support this notion is the fact that these more substantial news stories are not being written and orchestrated with the same kind of

PHOTOS: OLE MUNK

very close to the twelve-years limit originally mentioned by Berlingske when describing Kids’ News’ target group.

The lower age limit was supposed to be six although to me, that is absurd – a six-year-old will understand all but zilch of what’s in this publication – and the confusion seems complete when the top story on the Kids’ News website (and a full page in the print version) deals with fashion trends for candidates for confirmation. Now I don’t know about confirmation age rules in every Nordic country, but to the presumed readers of Kids’ News, such a fashion story ought to be science fiction, and the arrangement makes it look a lot like native advertising.

Typographical differences As for typography, Aftenposten Junior pairs a couple of classic newspaper typefaces with the font Eatwell which imitates a child’s handwriting. This combination seems carefully thought through and works well, unlike Kids’ News’ rather haphazard selection of typefaces which gives the Danish publication a resemblance to some advertising products.

Trying to maintain the hope I started out with, I’d like to mention a few positive details before closing. The basic design structure of Kids’ News is solid craftsmanship and the print is on fine, white paper, signaling a publication

on quite a different level of quality than the parents’ “cheap” newspapers. A wise strategy, most likely (and one which Kids’ News shares with Aftenposten Junior), if you wish to come up with a contemporary print-based alternative to the digital information channels this target group grew up with. And Aftenposten Junior’s success has proven that kids are perfectly willing to read on paper if only the content is right. So now, well, that’s the only thing lacking. n First published in Journalisten Ewww.journalisten.dk Ole Munk is a design & communication consultant, graphic designer, and illustrator, managing director of Ribergaard & Munk Graphic Design, former President of SNDS (1997-99). He writes about all things visual on Ewww.munkytalk.com Kids’ News Ewww.kidsnews.dk Editor: Jonas Stenbæk Christoffersen Circulation: 6.500-7.000 Published: Weekly (Friday) Aftenposten Junior Ewww.aftenpostenjunior.no Editor: Guri Leyell Skedsmo Circulation: 22.000 Published: Weekly

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sensitivity towards the receiver which makes reading Aftenposten Junior such a pleasant experience.

Few things can be as embarrassing as grownups trying to put themselves in tune with young people by mimicking their lingo. That is exactly the kind of verbal signals sent by Kids’ News, like when the paper lets Cristiano Ronaldo ask Lionel Messi for a beer in a speech balloon (both are professional football players, in case you didn’t know). It sounds phony – at the same time as it leaves a hunch that these editors see children as small teenagers, or maybe that they are aiming at a core reader

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Back issues of

 The Book

Best of Scandinavian News Design Is your collection incomplete?

Did you miss out on one or more of the previous years’ catalogs showing all the winners in the SNDS Best of Scandinavian News Design competitions?

Don’t worry. Order your back issue today by sending an e-mail to the SNDS secretariat at: lone.jurgensen@jp.dk Price € 15,- pr. book + shipping

 Each book is A4 format, 72–80 pages, full colour reproductions of all winning entries.  Earlier editions than the ones shown here may be available.  CD or DVD with photos of the winning pages is available for select years.

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ART PRINT Olafur Eliasson sketched suggestions for minor adjustments to his idea on the printed proof. Photos: Søren Nyeland

Web-TV

Olafur Eliasson designer Politikens forside E www.kortlink.dk/efzt

Søren Nyeland soren.nyeland@pol.dk n On the day of the election for the European Parliament the 25th of May the world famous Danish-Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson took the opportunity to turn the Politiken frontpage into a piece of art. The idea was to cre-

ate focus on the act of voting according to Editor-in-Chief, Bo Lidegaard.

Big bold letters say ‘Dit’ (Your) and ‘vi’ (we). And if you tear out the page and stick it to your window the word ‘indre’ (inner) completes the sentence.

The word ‘indre’ had to be printed reversed and all in all the cooperation with Olafur Eliasson was a fun but challenging process on phone

and a final meeting on café Dag H in Copenhagen. To say it with Olafurs own words: “I’m the idea and you’re the language”. In short Olafur Eliasson was chosen for the project because of his strong interest in what is “we”, relations and mutual interests of mankind. n Søren Nyeland is Head of Design at Politiken. Ewww.politiken.dk

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Art for the sake of democracy

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Designed by Monotype Released by Ryman Launched by Grey London

A font to save the planet Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

SNDSMagazine 2014|2

n “The last printing revolution changed

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our world. This one could help save it.”

Ambitions are high for British stationary brand Ryman and ad agency Grey London, who recently released a new font, Ryman Eco. Ryman claims that its new font, which is available for free download, uses a third less ink and toner than standard fonts such as Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana. The company believes that if everyone used the new font, it would save over 490 million ink cartridges and could help lower CO2 emissions by over 6.5 million tons.

The font was designed using thin lines rather than solid shapes, which reduces the amount of printer toner used to form a letter on the printed

document. Ryman Eco was designed to be suitable for use in any context, at any size, and this is perhaps the biggest challenge to its success. The idea is that in small sizes, you may not even notice the white lines in the characters, but in larger sizes its decorative appearance may mean some organisations may not want to use it in their publications. Furthermore, companies or organisations with a distinct design policy are not

Ecofont Taking the idea of saving toner one step further, the company behind Ecofont Vera Sans has developed software that will put holes in commonly used typefaces such as Verdana and Arial on your computer. Ewww.ecofont.com

likely to use this font anywhere at all as part of their typographic setup.

Ryman Eco is not the first example of a sustainable font. In 2008, Dutch company SPRANQ released its Eco Font type family, which uses holes in letters to reduce ink waste. But “Ryman Eco is both more efficient […] and more aesthetically pleasing than its rivals,” says the font’s designer Dan Rhatigan and Grey ECD Nils Leonard, in an interview with Creative Review.

However, being aesthetically pleasing – or, as Ryman boasts, “The world’s most beautiful sustainable font” – does not make it suitable for everything. As some commentators note, perhaps Ryman Eco is just an advertising gimmick in order to sell more printer toner – a main product at Ryman’s. n E www.rymaneco.co.uk

TRUTH NO. 1

A boundless front

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DrFront.

S how ee fo eas r you y it rse is t lf ou se

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Styling your front is easier than ever.

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Used by Extrabladet, Denmark Radio, VG and Norwegian Broadcasting.

aptoma.com

SNDS Magazine 2014|2 In My Honest Opinion

Stop whining Anne Laitinen anne.laitinen@ts.fi

n It’s a bit embarrasing to reveal a new habit of mine: I enjoy reading those nice-but-dull self help phrases. I even retweeted one which is weird because I usually only stalk on Twitter.

That phraise said: “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to be over. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain” (the design was stylish).

This is where I’ve ended up after just experiencing the sixth layoff round in six years at my work place. Now 70 colleagues of 160 are gone, close friends included.

Last year 172 media professionals lost their jobs in Finland. Staff reductions continue: 72 were fired in the past six months and the estimated number is 200 by the end of the year.

So phrases help.

It’s the same with SNDS. In this crowd I’ve had great opportunity to meet people who think that despite of hard times one should try to have fun at work and see it’s importance.

But positive phrases don’t get you far.

Action does. And there comes again SNDS. It is precisely these difficult times why I need SNDS so much.

With you people I am inspired and learning. And when I go back to the newsroom in Turku I most likely have something to bring along.

It’s easy to list nice things about SNDS: inspiring designers, interesting and odd experiments, beautiful scandinavian design.

But sometimes there’s unfortunately also some whining and game-is-over talks. And the print is of course always dead.

In my honest opinion: Shut up, dear.

SNDS has solid ground in news design and strong hold on digital development. In this year’s Best of Scandinavian News Design competition we had a flood of digital entries.

You will see the winners revealed at FUSION14 conference in Copenhagen October 9–10.

SNDS’ conferences may well be the best in the world. Comparing to some others taking place in Europe this year, FUSION14 has clearly the best line up of speakers. Check the programme: fusion14.snds.org (notice limited seats at masterclasses).

SNDS’ design competition is also to be proud of. I recently heard some disturbing news about sloppy judging elsewhere. Would you really like to get a prize no matter on what basis? SNDS does not give out prizes semirandomly or by calculating how the organisation would benefit the most. Quality is what you get with your SNDS membership.

Who knows how life will be, but SNDS is a fine place to see it happening.

At FUSION14 I’ll listen to those many who believe in quality journalism and embrace possibilities to reach ever more readers instead of dwelling in misery. And them I will miss the most when back home.

See you in Copenhagen! Let’s make it even more awesome than WRONG last year. n

IMHO There are all the reasons to believe in both journalism and SNDS. It’s quality that counts.

Anne Laitinen is board member of SNDS, jury member of the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition, and Design editor at Turun Sanomat, Turku, Finland.

PHOTO: LARS AARØ