SNDSmag 2015|2

SNDSMagazine 2015|2

SNDS BOARD

SNDS SECRETARIAT

SNDS MAGAZINE SNDSMagazine 2015|2

President & Chairman of the Competition Committee Flemming Hvidtfeldt Stentoften 72, DK-9520 Skørping, 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 Journalist Suomisvej 1 st th DK-1927 Frederiksberg C Denmark +45 40 10 28 30 frank.stjerne@gmail.com

Secretary for the board Lone Jürgensen Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Grøndalsvej 3, DK-8260 Viby J, Denmark +45 87 38 38 38 / 31 08 lone.jurgensen@jp.dk

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

WWW.SNDS.ORG

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

Web-editor Kartin Hansen Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten, Grøndalsvej 3, DK-8260 Viby J, Denmark +45 87 38 38 38 / 31 07 kartin.hansen@jp.dk

SNDS Magazine editorial office Østerbrogade 158, 3. TH., DK-2100 Copenhagen Ø, Denmark ISSN 1901-8088 Print: GraphicCo, graphicco.dk SNDS Magazine is set in Real Text and Museo Slab and designed in Adobe Indesign CC.

SUBSTITUTES FOR THE BOARD Ingrid Meisingset, Adresseavisen, Norway Olli Nurminen, Helsingin Sanomat, Finland Søren Nyeland, Politiken, Denmark Petra Villani, Sydsvenskan, Sweden

SNDS Magazine is published quarterly in March, June, September and December.

Editorial and advertising deadlines: February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15.

Published by SNDS – the Society for News Design Scandinavia

www.snds.org Elisabeth Svendby, Amedia Hieronymus H. gate 1, N-0160 Oslo, Norway +47 40 23 76 25 elisabeth.svendby@amedia.no

SNDS on Facebook: facebook.com/sndscandinavia

SNDS on twitter: @sndstwit Anders Tapola, Smålandsposten, Linnégatan 2, S-351 70 Växjö, Sweden +46 470 770 686 anders.tapola@smp.se

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

On the cover: Award winning illustration by Klaus Welp for Helsingin Sanomat.

See more p. 22–29

A big thank you to our contributors in this issue: Kartin Hansen Jyllands-Posten jp.dk See p. 14–15 Pål Nedregotten Amedia amedia.no See p. 10–12 Anders Tapola Smålandsposten smp.se See p. 16–17 Klaus Welp Artist, illustrator, photographer welp.fi See p. 22-29 Plus: Many thanks to Adonis, Alberto, Anders, Anna, Javier, John, Kim, Kyle, Sara, and Stefan who all kindly aswered our Q&A about Facebook as “World’s Best Designed™ Digital” See p. 18–20

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 editorial

The sweet smell of success Do not try to win awards.

Do not try to follow fashion.

Be true to your subject and you will be far more likely to create something that is timeless.

That’s where the true art lies.”

– Paul Arden*

Although you should not create just to win, nearly everybody likes to win awards. If the awards are given to you by colleagues or people you look up to within your profession, the feeling is especially great. Once again, Scandinavian newspapers can enjoy this feeling: In April, the jury behind the SND 37th Best of News Design competition named Dagens Nyheter (S) and Politiken (DK) “World’s Best-Designed™ Newspapers” – together with De Morgen (Belgium), The Guardian (Britain).

The jury chose between 215 newspapers submitted from all over the world, and it’s worth noting that Dagens Nyheter wins this title for the third year in a row. Politiken is now a four time World’s Best winner, having previously received the title in 2006, 2011, and 2012.

We even had a Scandinavian PH runner-up this year: Svenska DagOT O BY L AR bladet (S), (World’s Best in 2004) was S AARØ among the 17 finalists.

So it’s fair to say that Scandinavian news­ papers maintain world class quality, compared to regions with a much higher number of publications to choose from – and probably much higher budgets to draw from, too. This bodes well for the Scandinavian competition of which the winners will be announced in October.

In the digital competition, SND named only one “World’s Best-Designed™ Digital” winner *In: It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s – Facebook. This controversial decision was How Good You Want To Be, p.90. Phaidon announced in April at the SNDDC seminar in 2003. Paul Arden (1940–2008) was a Washington and evoked strong reactions from creative director for Saatchi and Saatchi many in the business – even after the SND at the height of their advertising might, website published an extended statement and an influential author of several (labelled by Roger Black on twitter as “sad books on advertising and motivation. excuses”) from the judges. We wanted to keep

the discussion going a bit longer and asked leading news designers for their comment to the jury’s decision (see p. 18–20).

In February, I had the honour of serving once again as judge in the print categories of the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition. It’s such a privilege to get the opportunity to see hundreds of submitted entries representing a snapshot of Scandinavian newspaper design right now. A lot of good work, a fair amount of excellent work, and among them the few pieces that really stand out.

One unique voice this year was that of Finnish illustrator Klaus Welp – whose detailed drawings earned him an Honourable Mention and (on this issue’s cover) a nomination for a Silver or Gold Award. We wanted to see more of Klaus Welp’s work – and found out that the style used in the two winning entries is just one of his many distinct voices – see p. 22-29.

ALSO IN THIS ISSUE

Pål Nedregotten, Chief Innovation Officer at Amedia AS, Oslo looks into some of the myths that surround digital news – and argues that even though more and more people read news updates on social media it is still extremely important to have a dedicated, well-edited front page on your own website – not least to care for your most loyal readers. See p. 10–12.

We also look into a new design trend called “anti­cipatory design” which will also be a theme on the SNDS15 Conference in October.

Kartin Hansen, Head of Digital Development at Jyllands-Posten, Denmark, explains the basics and wonders when the news media will jump on this trend wagon. See p. 14–15.

Anders Tapola, former SNDS President and Design Editor at Smålandsposten, Sweden found himself “last man standing” when his design department suddenly disappeared and was replaced by software tools and a centralised design hub. Read his thoughts about the pros and cons of this new situation on p. 16–17.

Finally, in case you haven’t noticed yet: the snds.org website has been updated with a new look and feel, so take a look. And while you’re there – don’t forget to check for updates to the SNDS15 conference in October.  Have a great summer!

Lars Pryds Editor, SNDS Magazine

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The 2016 SND workshop: San Francisco in April The Society for News Design has announced its 38th Annual Workshop and Exhibition will be held in San Francisco (California) from April 7-9, 2016.

The workshop co-chairs are Elizabeth Burr of the San Francisco Chronicle and Frank Mina of the Seattle Times. Follow them on Twitter at @eburr_sf and @fmina

and keep up with the hashtag #SNDSF for updates. Details on venue will be released later this year.

Register at: www.snd.org/training

Competition book covers unveiled SND has revealed the covers of the 36th Edition Best of News Design book showing the winners in this year’s competition.

Ismael and Karen Sandiego designed the newspaper-quilt cover (above, far left), which will appear on the soft-cover edition, with art direction by Adonis Durado, photography

by Venecio Datan and editing

by Ali Jani.

Adonis Durado and illustrator Winie Ariany created

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the blue path cover (second from left), which will be the hard-cover version.

All the artists involved in the winning submissions work at the Times of Oman/Al Shabiba in Muscat, Oman.

The covers were chosen by the public among 26 entries shown on the SND.org website.

SNDS BEST COVERS

SNDS has also chosen the covers for this year’s book of

winners in the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition, and these were found in a much less democratic way.

Competition chairman, SNDS President Flemming Hvidtfeldt and editor Lars Pryds decided the covers for this year’s publication. SNDS will publish only one book, but like the previous two editions it will be printed upside-down, with one cover for the digital categories and one for the

print categories. The covers feature details of photographs from winning entries: The print cover (above, third from left) shows a photo by Sigurd Fandango for Dagbladet/D2, Norway, a winner in ‘Magazines’; the digital cover (far right) shows Danish film director Lars von Trier in a multimedia production by Peter Vintergaard, Politiken.tv, awarded in the ‘TV-experience’ category.

–pryds

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

ccieurope.com

escenic.com

Design Conference Master Classes Amazing Speakers*) Pecha Kucha Delicious Lunch Gala Dinner Award Show Lots of Fun October 1–2, 2015 Copenhagen DK conference.snds.org 6

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*)

Ted Irvine Emily Goligoski Rune Madsen Rasmus Kyllönen Henrik Hatt

Liv-Jorunn Håker Ottesen Nico Macdonald Matthew Ball Arne Depuydt Rickard Frank Anders Bergmann Nielsen Jon Hill et al.



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Save the dates: October 1–2, 2015 The SNDS15 design conference will be held at Scandic Copenhagen Hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark on Thursday–Friday, October 1–2, 2015. Join your colleagues – new and old – for fascinating speakers, master classes, gala dinner and award ceremonies. Save the dates now and save big by getting the early bird price changes by 30 June and August 31. See the prices below and stay tuned for more info and updates to the program and speaker list on the conference website: conference.snds.org

PHOTO BY LARS PRYDS

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION FEE IS:

May 1 – June 30: € 595 / DKK 4.435 – You save: € 200 / DKK 1.490 July 1 – August 31: € 695 / DKK 5.175 – You save: € 100 / DKK 740 From September 1: € 795 / DKK 5.925 Sales Tax (25%) will be added to all prices

SNDS15 IS PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

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Fee includes: Attendance at all sessions, final programme, lunches, coffee/tea breaks during conference days, welcome reception October 1 and gala dinner and award show October 2.

SNDS15 speakers (A few of them)

PH

OT OB YM

ATT L O

CKE

PHOT O PR

PHOT O PR

PHOT O PR

NICO MACDONALD

MATTHEW BALL

HENRIK HATTD

ARNE DEPUYDT

Nico Macdonald is Co-Director of Media Futures, a high-level and hands-on project on media and innovation. Media Futures has collaborated with organisations from the BBC to Bloomberg to understand and demonstrate the future potential of media from publishing to broadcasting.

Nico Macdonald writes on media, design and innovation for publications including the Guardian, BBC News Online, Creative Review, PRINT, and Eye magazine. He is also author of What is Web Design?

(RotoVision, 2003).

At SNDS15 Nico Macdonald will review innovation in news design — in terms of product and practice — and how this has impacted on analogue and digital design. He will also outline some key directions for innovation, and ways we can be more innovative.

Matthew Ball is Art Director for Think Scotland Publishing which works predominantly with membership organisations magazines.

He specialises in editorial design, magazine production, web design, and training from his own design consultancy, which he launched in 2005, based in London and Edinburgh.

The key goal of a member magazine is to motivate the membership or community to participate in an activity and feel part of a group or community, whether it be visiting a National Trust property or getting involved in an environmental campaign for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

Print is thriving in the membership organization industry, it’s a great medium for member organisations to communicate with their community. The challenge for a publisher like Think Scotland is to take the organisation’s brand values and messages and convert these into inspiring editorial stories with compelling design.

Henrik Hatt is administrative manager at Moesgaard Museum (MoMu) in Denmark, Aarhus. He has an academic background in media science and archaeology.

Henrik has worked with exhibitions in international contexts since 2003 as well as senior consultant within the field of experience economy.

In 2012 he started at Moesgaard Museum establishing the creative team and methodology for the new exhibitions at the new museum building that opened in the Fall of 2014.

Moesgaard has won awards both for their exhibitions and architecture.

Henrik will give a talk on design seen from a different perspective – the museum experience. The new museum started a new create process – including the creation of a fully manned design studio.

Moesgaard has succeeded in attracting new audience using modern and traditional communication channels.

Henrik Hatt will present the methods used to accomplish the task of reinventing the museum communication.

De Morgen won The World Best Designed Newspaper SND award earlier this year.

We are proud to have De Morgen on the program for the SNDS15 conference giving us insight about their award winning print design.

Arne Depuydt joined De Morgen after graduating from the Design School in 2007. He started as a sport pages designer. In 2010 he was appointed assistant Art Director and in 2014 as the general Art Director.

The same year he started the process of redesigning De Morgen with design consultant Jacek Utko.

Website: www.spy.co.uk Twitter: @Nico_Macdonald

Website: www.matthewball. co.uk Twitter: @MattBallDesign

Website: www.demorgen.be

See more speakers and follow updates on the conference.snds.org website – and sign up for the SNDS Newsletter on snds.org

Website: moesgaardmuseum.dk

conference.snds.org SNDSMagazine 2015|2

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PH

OTO PR

The front page is quite simply the most effective means we’ve discovered to put journalism in front of readers.

Nothing else comes close.

Pål Nedregotten CIO, Amedia

The front page in the age of social In a month where Facebook launches “Instant articles” with 13 of the biggest global publishers, and a year after The New York Times declared that its front page was rapidly spiraling downwards in importance, it might seem odd to declare the following: it has never been more important to have a well-edited online front page. And it has never been more important to have a well-designed front page.

Text by Pål Nedregotten pal.nedregotten@amedia.no Real traffic figures hiding behind the chatter from social media pundits – arguing that news distribution is becoming social, that the article page is the new front page – tell a different story, at least in Norway.

I suspect the same also hold true elsewhere.

YOUR MOST VALUABLE READERS CHOOSE THE FRONT PAGE

Consider the following, from Amedia’s roughly 70 local online titles: ●● A reader that enters through the front page, sees on average 5 page views per visit. Compare with Facebook: slightly above 1 page view per visit on average. ●● A reader that enters through the front page is more loyal,

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visits more often and reads more stories than anyone entering from other sources. ●● 80 per cent of all page views – and hence, on an ad-financed model, 80 per cent of the value – may be traced back to the front page. Facebook?

7.5 per cent.

I’ve written extensively (in Norwegian) about the relationship between Facebook and the front page in the Norwegian online magazine, Vox Publica.

Still not convinced?

LEARN FROM THE SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANIES – REALLY?

How about if we listen to Facebook’s former platform manager, Josh Elman, and former Huffington Post CTO Paul Berry instead?

“The truly valuable and beloved companies have built

a real front door — one that converts to repeatable, direct visits,” they wrote on Medium. com in early May. “Social media companies understand this – traditional media companies could stand to learn from them.”

Which, on the face of it, is an astonishing piece of advice.

Perhaps we could stand to re-learn something we should have known all along: that the front page is damned important. That it has never stopped being important, perhaps except for those who never had a strong brand and loyal readers to begin with.

And, that to ignore it is to undermine your own position among your readers.

A DIFFERENT BEAST

The Nordic front page is a very different beast than, say, that of the The New York Times

or The Guardian. Why this is so, one might only speculate – but we were early in taking our newspapers online, early in adopting the Internet, and had to learn how to pull traffic directly early on.

Later, we never saw the traffic boost that search gave our English-language brethren – perhaps because our language groups reach comparatively small numbers of people outside our own borders. The front pages has always been our best, most effective tool in getting journalism in front of the readers. No wonder they turned out different: longer, more focussed, built to scroll, built to be visited many times daily, and updated continuously.

A well-designed front page is all about getting journalism across effectively. And it needs to be very effective, because once people start scrolling,

 The idealized viewport of a Nordic news site often corresponds roughly to the golden rule, here from Norway’s Aftenposten.no.

they scroll fast. I’d argue that this is the single most misunderstood aspect of the front page design: the time each element has to grab someone’s attention is short, measured in mere hundreds of milliseconds. Content for the Apple Watch has been desicribed as “needing to be glance-able” – easily understood at a glance – I’d argue that this is no less the case for content placed on the front page.

THE FUNNEL

In one of the best articles I’ve read on reading on the web, “Attention, rhythm & weight,” New York Times-designer Allen Tan describes the scenario when you enter a web page beautifully.

“When you first come to a web page, your frame is the whole window, because your eyes are still looking around.

But once you begin reading, the frame locks around that particular body of text.

When you’re reading, it’s not very calm. Your eyes are moving from word to word, bouncing around, but they stay inside the current frame.”

This is equally true for the front page. The front page is a funnel. Once you start scrolling, your eyes lock around the central column, bouncing from story to story, scrolling and bouncing, until, finally, finding something to dwell on, and perhaps to click on.

BRAIN SYSTEMS 1 & 2

This corresponds exactly with what the Economy-Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman calls “System 1” of our brains – which “operates automatically and quickly, with no effort and no sense of voluntary control”.

We want our front pages to be effortless – to be scanned quickly and effectively. It’s after the click – on the story – that we want the reader to be engaged, to learn, to utilize what Kahneman calls “System 2”: “allocating attention to the effortful mental activities that demand it, including complex computations. The operations of System 2 are often associated with the subjective experience of agency, choice, and concentration”.

The way this is handled in the Nordics, is mostly by stacking editorial modules, each roughly corresponding to a idealized notebook viewport, on top of each other. Interestingly enough, the idealized viewport also corresponds roughly to the golden rule (as illustrated above, from Norway’s Aftenposten.no).

Within each module, edi-

torial choices – imagery and titles – communicate priorities, impact, and for lack of better terms, punch and temperature. When the story structure is tepid, when headlines fail to catch attention – in short, when you bore the reader – you lose his or her attention. And then they leave. If you do this repeatedly – they won’t come back.

The most important aspect, however, is for the content to be easily glance-able, it must be visually balanced, and not taller than the viewport.

Clutter up the viewport, and you clutter up the reading experience.

CASCADING CONTENT

The same is true for mobile, only there, the screen orientation is flipped on its head.

Each module follows a  few basic rules, and when

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stacked on top of each other, offer a flow of news that could go on indefinitely, or at least until new stories run out.

I often liken this scrolling process to water cascading down a cliff. Editors and designers should be aware of the obstacles and hindrances they put in the way of the reader effortlessly navigating content.

If the natural flow of content is blocked, the reader leaves. If this happens repeatedly, he or she might not come back.

GLANCE-ABLE ADS

This is particularly important for non-editorial material, such as ads. For ads to remain an effortless – and effective – part of the flow, they should follow the same rules that govern content.

Ads should be glance-able, easily understood in half a second to have impact. Not possible, you say?

Consider this. An editorial story on the front pages of one of our local newspapers, with, say, 20.000 daily readers, following the same simple rules laid out here, might easily see 5.000 readers clicking on it. I’ve seen figures stating that you’re 475.29 times more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a banner ad in your lifetime.

That may be overstating the case, but still: the advertizing industry could stand to learn a thing or two from the editorial side.

Facebook – in itself mostly a front page – handles this extremely well, especially on mobile. There is little disturbance in the natural flow when you start scrolling, only content with familiar hooks and anchor points for the eyes.

With Facebook, even the ads are content.

WE COULD DO BETTER  Finans.dk – the new business brand launched by Jyllands-

Posten, Denmark in October 2014, received an Honourable Mention in the Front Page category in the Best of Scandinavian News Design 2014 competition. Read about the making of Finans.dk in SNDS Magazine 2015/1.

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That said, the front page has its problems. Problems that only a clear understanding of user needs and desires, and a well-executed design process, may hope to solve.

The main problem is this: we’ve built front pages for sampling news.

Consider a front page from a large online newspaper – any one. How many stories does this brand carry on its front page? 50? 100? How many did you click on? One? Two? (The numbers tell us that you on average clicked on two.). So, you read 2% of all published stories. Was that because the rest was uninteresting? Or because the job of clicking all those stories simply seemed to big an effort?

Clearly, our jobs as designers and developers of online news experiences are not done.

DON’T ABANDON THE QUEST FOR LOYALISTS

Problems notwithstanding: The front page is quite simply the most effective means we’ve discovered to put journalism in front of readers. Nothing else comes close. And giving up on it and succumbing to social distribution, may turn out a disaster in the long run.

Elman and Perry again: “Companies who abandon the quest for a loyalist audience are deciding – consciously or not – to build a much less ambitious company, one that relies on an ecosystem that can change its rules on a whim.

They also are unlikely to be able to build the same size of extended audience because they lack the consistent seeding of content that loyalists  bring.”

Pål Nedregotten is Chief Innovation Officer/CIO at Amedia AS, Oslo, Norway Follow Pål on twitter @nedregotten www.amedia.no

http://politiken.dk/404 – Politiken caught off guard and naked.

http://allison.house/404 – Clever typing as you wait.

http://gifmylive.arte.tv/404 – it’s a circle, but it’s alive!

http://psicobyte.com/404 – Oops! What a surprise to see you!

http://twitter.com/404 – a twitter user who’s not really there.

http://dagbladet.no/404 – Choose your remote control.

You’re lost – let’s have some fun It’s not very polite to focus on people’s flaws, but when a large Danish newspaper recently published two blank pages, except for the words “TEKNISK UHELD” (technical error)* across the full spread, it occurred to me: This must be as close to a 404 page we will ever get in the print world.

By Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com When your printer asks for two more pages and there’s no time to create content, you have to think fast– but hopefully you have an error page ready in your template library. A page which is only visible to people with access to the production system – or to readers on these very rare occasions.

On websites, it’s not recommended to show your error pages to the public too often, either, but you can find the 404 page easily – just type any url followed by ‘/404’ .

Well, usually it works – try typing smp.se/404 and you will land on an actual article page with the number 404 in the headline. Clever guessing, but still the wrong page …

Standard 404 pages mimick

the design of the site and can be really boring, but some do try to create something special for people who get lost on their website. If you can make users smile they will still have a great experience on your site – and will forgive you for not finding the right page.

The 404 page is also the place to show what the core identity of your business is – many news sites, for example,

show drawings made by their best illustrators.

The 404 pages shown here are from diffenrent kind of sites, but just some great examples of pages with personality and wit. Some are superbly animated and interactive – so  check them out online. *) Technical error is, as print people know, usually a mild misrepresentation of the facts. Most likely it was human error; someone simply forgot to plan the correct number of pages for that print run. But nice to know that real people are involved.

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DIGIT.CO

Heading for anticipation in design We relate ‘digital design’ to accesability, usability, interaction and of course form, function and aesthetics. But there is more to digital design than this. With the abundance of information and services we are overwhelmed with choices and actions to take. Users get lost in this jungle and the abundance becomes a burden. A way to overcome this is to look to a new design trend – Anticipatory Design.

Text by Kartin Hansen kartin.hansen@gmail.com It is said that we humans have to make 35.000 decisions and choices every day. There is no way to validate this number, but taking into account the many choices and actions we perform on the internet with our digital devices the number might not be totally on the wrong side.

The more information and services we get access to the more choices to be taken. And the more choices the less time for each. We are in a choice fatigue and in a big risk of taking bad choices.

While technology and the internet should make our lives easier the opposite might just as well have been the reality.

Too much information, too many decisions to take.

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The goal of Anticipatory Design is to eliminate all this decision-making. Decisions are actually made on the behalf of the user. The goal is to create a design where decisions are taken automatically without user input. The design should eliminate as many steps as possible and use data, the user’s behaviour, and business logic to make things happen as close to automatically as we can.

NO ACTION REQUIRED

Anticipation is not personalization. In personalization you have to give away a lot of data about yourself and your preferences to give the system the ability to choose relevant information for you. Having in mind the vast amount of data our interaction with digital system result in there should

be enough information about our anticipation of a given end result. Personalization requires user action. Anticipation does not.

So basically the idea is to combine user interactions with data and predict or anticipate other results for the user.

I can give one example of Anticipatory Design from my own life. The other day I booked a hotel for my summer holiday. I used my gmail account. After I received a confirmation to my booking from the hotel in my gmail inbox I noticed that my gmail calendar had been updated with the booking dates. I now have a booking in my calendar for the stay and there is no danger for me making a double booking in that period. Simple, yet smart.

Recommendation services

like those of Amazon (“you also ought to buy these books”) and Netflix (“you should also see this film”) are Anticipatory Design in the sense that they provide the anticipated information to the user - but it still requires a decision and an action to accept it.

THE CHOICES FOR NEWS

So what does all this mean for news media and news design?

You could argue that traditional news media with the help and use of news design, infographics, etc. are the decision makers for the news consumer. At least this has been and probably still is one of the images that traditional news media have of themselves. We choose the news for you. Is anticipatory design then obsolete in relation to news media since the news consumer does

NEST.COM

 Digit.co helps people make smarter, automated savings

decisions by connecting to its users’ bank accounts, assessing income and spending habits, and automatically moving money into a savings account. And don’t worry – it will only take what you can afford! A small video on Digit’s website explains the principle in just 60 seconds.

not have any choices to take?

I would argue no – since there are a heck of a lot of choices to be made in the consumption of news media on whatever platform it is. The news sources and products have increased in number now and the vast of information an articles coming through this jungle of news puts a lot of decision making on the news consumer to find a way through the it. Therefore anticipatory design indeed can be a gift to news design and news media in general.

How can we then imagine a news eco-system that allows us a news media to design services and products in an anticipatory way? We need a “personal” relationsship with the user for sure. Login/create a user. So few choices as absolutely possible here. Accept the terms of the service. In the

terms could be that we collect data about your behaviour and use that to provide you with the most relevant information.

A simple example is to measure if there are any part of the news you read most – sports, domestic, business – and then make sure that related articles are from the same section.

This is simple related articles functionality.

I believe that the pure and most true anticipation lies in push. Push services have less choice than pull since you get the information delivered.

You don’t have to go out and collect it.

Imagine that when you open your favorite news site or news app the stories you see there are based on your anticipation of what news is relevant for you? The stories are presented to you based on data

 Nest, the Internet-enabled thermometer introduced to the market in 2011, automatically adjusts room temperature based on a user’s prior choices. Assessing what temperature residents prefer based on time of day and tweaking it accordingly rids the user of the need to decide for themselves. “Programs itself. Then pays for itself,” is the promising punchline of the product.

collected on your behaviour.

Off cause behaviour can be supported by few choices on the way. You can be asked if this is a topic that you usually want to read news about.

While there is a big potential in Anticipatory Design there are also dangers. There is a fine line in being instructive or intrusive. When do we cross that border? If we don’t succeed in telling the user what we use his behaviour and data for and have his accept of this more can be lost than won with an Anticipatory Design approach.

society is not obsolete at all in this context.

It will be exciting to follow the emergence of news services touching Anticipatory Design. We would love to hear from any of you who have worked with this so we can be inspired and learn from your experience. You are welcome to send me an email at kartin.hansen@gmail.com 

NEWS IN THE FUTURE

Kartin Hansen is Head of Digital Development at Jyllands-Posten, Denmark.

Anticipatory Design is only on it’s verge to emerge. It resides in the border between data, programming and user experience. The presentation of a Anticipatory Design is crucial.

The discipline of the SNDS

Sources:  www.fastcodesign.com/ 3045039/the-next-big-thingin-design-fewer-choices  www.digit.co  www.nest.com

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PHOTOS BY ANDERS TAPOLA

 Last issue of Smålandsposten in the old form, and the first issue of the new.

Adjusting pages So, finally I’m sitting here. Without any design department. It was not entirely painless in the beginning, but it still went surprisingly smoothly.

Text by Anders Tapola anders.tapola@smp.se I have lost count of how many times, as president of SNDS, I wrote columns and warned about design hubs that grew up like mushrooms and design depart­ments that are closed down. A development which of course started in the United States.

And now we have it coming even in Nordic countries, and not at least in Sweden we have

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moved very fast in this direction in recent years.

Gota Media decided about a year and a half ago to develop a common form for all the Group’s newspapers. Both the paper version and the web. All inclusive was the motto, just the same way as Fædrelandsvennen, who was one of the first newspapers in the Nordics to take that route.

I participated in a reference group representing Smålands­ posten where for a year we

gave comments on the new form. A form developed by Javier Errea and Errea Communicación, for paper and web.

First out was Barometern in October 2014 followed by newspaper after newspaper in three-week intervals. Last out was Smålandsposten on Tuesday 3 February.

And overnight the whole editing department disappeared at Smålandsposten. There we were quite alone in Gota Media. Most other newspapers

have chosen to keep a certain part of designers.

Instead of designers, we now have two services during the daytime as “page planners” and three people who can shift during the evenings as “page adjusters”.

The page planners work in Infomaker’s editorial system Newspilot Whiteboard with different article modules added. One creates the puzzle of the page with help from more than 400 article modules.

GOTA MEDIA

Gota Media was formed in 2003 and is owned by the two foundations Barometern Foundation and Thore G Wärenstams Foundation.

GOTA MEDIA’S MISSION

Gota Media will own and develop journalistic activities with strong local ties and high quality. The company’s organization shall be characterized by efficiency and continuous business development.

DAILY NEWSPAPERS

Barometern Blekinge Läns Tidning Borås Tidning Kristianstadsbladet Smålandsposten Sydöstran Trelleborgs Allehanda Östran Ystad Allehanda

 Newspilot Whiteboard is the planning tool for building pages.

WEEKLY OR PERIODICAL NEWPAPERS:

Ulricehamns Tidning Kalmar Läns Tidning Kungsbackanytt STT Svenljunga Tranemo Ulricehamn St-tidningen Växjöbladet/Kronobergaren Ölandsbladet XtraBorås Magazinet

 Some of the premiere issues of Gota Media’s newspapers in the new form.

 Some of Gota Media’s newspapers as they look today with a common form, signed Javier Errea and Errea Communicación.

THE NEW FONTS

Rude Freight

When a page is complete in Newspilot Whiteboard a page adjuster edits the page in InDesign, makes sure that the headlines are correct and that the articles really fit, fills out the pictures and draws lines between the articles. This work takes only a few minutes on average per page. Then the pages are sent to the printers.

It’s fast, it’s rational, but perhaps the result will be a bit static. As for myself, I work as a page planner and I design

the front pages, longer stories that stretch across more than two pages (these can not be planned in Newspilot whiteboard) and I’m quite happy anyway. Because I still actually  work a lot in InDesign.

Anders Tapola is Design editor at Smålandsposten and member of the SNDS board.

SNDS President 2007–2013.  www.smp.se

 Smålandspostens new digital form.

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 17

Facebook: The World’s Best Designed News Site?

In early April, SND named Facebook the “World’s Best Designed™ Digital” in the 5th annual “Best of Digital Design 2014” competition. The decision cause some discussion at the SNDDC seminar when the winner was announced, and later forced SND Headquarters to post an interview with the three jury members, explaining the background for their decision. You can read the full interview on snd.org According to the basic guidelines, the competition is open to all websites and apps dedicated to the presentation of news and the competition “rewards skill, innovation and high-quality digital journalism”. Previous winners include more traditional news sites such as The Boston Globe, SB Nation, The Globe and Mail, and CNN.com.

We asked some of the world’s leading news designers to comment on the jury’s decision to name Facebook World’s Best this year. Here are their answers:

ALBERTO CAIRO

ADONIS DURADO

Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University of Miami Director of the Visualization program at the Center for Computational Science (UM) Author of The Functional Art (New Riders, 2013) www.thefunctionalart.com

Chief Creative Officer, Muscat Media Group (Publisher of Times of Oman and Al Shabiba) www.timesofoman.com

“I was completely surprised by the decision of the jury to give the award to Facebook.

I don’t know the circumstances of the discussion or what the reason was to give the award so it’s risky to voice an opinion, but I believe to the outer world it gives a very strange message. Seen from the outside I think this was a misguided decision.

In the first place, Facebook is not a news website, it’s a social media platform.

It’s obviously a platform to deliver news, but it doesn’t create news.

Other companies create news and then they put their news on that platform.

The other thing is that I don’t PH really understand why Facebook OTO : PR is the World’s best designed website.

I mean, there are much better designed websites out there that are doing innovative work – such as Quartz (qz.com), fivethirtyeight.com or vox.com.

If the jury wanted to make a point and send a message like “there are new players in town and we need to acknowledge their importance”, they could have recognised the work of some of the new real news websites that actually create news and at the same time excel at design. “ Like · Comment · Share ·

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“Choosing Facebook as the winner is an acknowledgment of the prevailing shift of how readers consume the news. Though Facebook is not a news website, but it’s a news aggregator nonetheless. It has become a powerful tool not only in spreading the news, but in generating content and reader’s interaction. Across all platforms, Facebook’s design is very sleek, clean and intuitive.

I like the idea that SND gave the award this time to a PH OTO PR non-traditional news website.”

Like · Comment · Share ·

THE JUDGES

Fernando Diaz, The Center for Investigative Reporting; Ted Irvine, Vox Media; and Martina Schories, Süddeutsche Zeitung.

FROM THE JUDGES’ STATEMENT

“From desktop to mobile to app, this year’s winner works.

Everywhere. On anything. It provides a richer news experience than any one “site.” It is redefining “community,” by evolving our relationships with the news and each other. We must not only embrace this shift, but learn from it and evolve our organizations accordingly. It is the platform that you love, or hate, or love to hate. But increasingly cannot live without. This would not be possible without world class design”.

Read the judges’ full statement: bit.ly/fb-snd INTERVIEW WITH THE JUDGES

On the SND website, posted 8 May 2015: bit.ly/fb-snd-int

JAVIER ERREA

SARA QUINN

Principal, Errea Comunicación erreacomunicacion.com

Vice president of the Society for News Design www.snd.org

.: S AR

AQ

UINN

“I was surprised when I learned this year’s judges named Facebook as the sole winner of the World’s Best. The choice is certainly provocative. My hope is that, like any controversial editorial or cartoon, the discussion around this choice brings new and varied voices to the conversation.”

Like · Comment · Share ·

STEFAN KNAPP

SND Regional Director and organizer of the 2014 SND congress in Frankfurt, Germany www.snd2014.de

PH

“There is basically nothing to criticize about the jury’s decision. The SND-jurors are independent and free to make their own decisions. The criteria set forth are transparent and comprehensible though not all-encompassing. Despite this the decision has to be respected.

Personally, I deem the decision of the jury as inappropriate. In my opinion Facebook has got nothing to do with (visual) journalism, which after all is the central concern of the Society for News Design.

If both statements of the jury, O :M IR “We find ourselves at a crossroads“ CO SARIC and “Publishers and news sites find themselves at a crossroads“, applied, one ought to be as consequent as well as intellectually and politically correct as to question and newly define all notions, basic principles and criteria at these crossroads - and perhaps also the definition of democracy.

Notwithstanding this, I agree with the jury’s statement: “If somehow you don’t believe it’s a valid news site, stop sharing your stories there.“ Because all Facebook users have to ask themselves why they - even out of their own fee will! - have become media slaves and serve a “master”, whose net-needy “genius” is simultaneously admired and viewed critically by so many.”

OT

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LL

I

“This is a big, big, big mistake! SND shouldn’t have awarded Facebook ever! We hold a journalistic competition. Facebook is not journalism at all. Facebook is something far from journalism. I couldn’t have imagined such an error! SND must keep its path very clear, which is pure journalism. News design. Nothing far from here. My advice: do not accept entries out of the news world again.

It is amazing and awkward to see that online judges go far beyond their competences. This is a design contest. No more than that. This is not a contest about the future of our industry. My humble opinion is that they are thinking too far and even evaluating the news industry situation, which is not what they were asked for.

It is completely different in print. Judges just evaluate visual presentation. They don’t understand any single word in Arabic, PH OTO : PR for instance. Nevertheless Times of Oman is awarded. Same for Politiken, in Danish, or Dagens Nyheter in Swedish. Why don’t print judges take circulation, audience and other philosophical questions into account? Why is online jury different? Even more, why can the online jury select candidates to World’s Best?

Facebook didn’t enter the competition. Other candidates didn’t either. For print, you have to pay and enter. If you don’t pay, you can’t win. There are dozens of fantastic newspapers around the world that never win because they don’t enter. And even more, many of the World’s Best in print are a big failure in terms of business. Just mention The Grid in Canada. It stepped down last year but was even in the final list.”

Like · Comment · Share ·

More opinions on the following page 

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 19

ANNA THURFJELL

JOHN BARK

Former Creative Director at Svenska Dagbladet, 2003-2013. Today she is the owner of Anna Thurfjell Design, based in Copenhagen & Stockholm.

One of her recent clients was a design study of the Nobel Prize for The Nobel Foundation. anna@annathurfjelldesign.se

Founder, JBGD AB www.barkdesign.se

1 http://time.com/3837157/how-facebook-is-helping-emergency-responders-in-nepal/ 2 The quote was by the American architect Louis Sullivan.

KIM BJØRN

Designer & Co-founder, Cre8o www.cre8o.com “Facebook as a newssite is not to argue. In my opinion it is not the best designed though. A website of that size will always have to care for the most common denominator – and we need more designs striving forward and further by pushing the quality of user experience to new levels and to do that you have to be either small or PH OTO brave. Facebook is neither – and will be used : PR no matter how ugly or bad the UI.” Like · Comment · Share ·

M

IM

Like · Comment · Share ·

:J TO PHO

“Facebook sure deserves to be acknowledged. After all they were pioneers in how social media was designed.

Everybody knows Facebook works, however I always had a love-and-hate affair with it … Facebook’s success is unquestionable, a highly skilled technological innovation to inform that today is uncontroversial. In design its strengths are the clear branding that works on all levels and its intuitive “easy to use” design.

However what I really like about Facebook is not its design but how it gives everyone the same freedom of speech. Recently I also read that Facebook launched a safety check to help people find their friends in Nepal1, that is really incredible and a perfect way to brand a company.

This doesn’t mean Facebook does it for me on the aesthetics. Just because FacePH book is a success it doesn’t mean it’s a great OTO : PR design. Just because the international hit of the year 2000 was Oops I did it again by Britney Spears doesn’t mean it’s a great song. Not to me …

Facebook is bit like Britney, very catchy but a little tiring too … when you use it a whole day through.

I like news sites like Al Jazeera America Live for mobile devices for its possibility to be visual and direct in a global news story.

A key question for a really good information news design in the future ought to be how to present it in a new and engaging functional design. If you think about the famous quote ”Form follows function”2 I think that’s a bit what I’m trying to say … we should not fail to just be happy with something that functions – we should aim for an aesthetic form too.”

“It’s an Unlike in my book. A well chosen award should, and could, be explained in a few sentences. Not by lengthy statements.

There are other forums for fenomenas such as Facebook than SND.” IE

ER

Like · Comment · Share · I KS

SON

KYLE ELLIS

Product Manager, The Business Journals Digital Director, Society for News Design @KyleEllis “Naming Facebook the World’s Best designed news website sounds the alarm that news organizations must start pushing innovation beyond editorial projects. Our platforms matter — we rely on them to connect our content with our audience — but are we really giving them the attention they deserve and our business requires? Probably not. At first, the decision may seem controversial, but PH OTO when you start peeling away the layers, it : PR makes sense to me.”

Like · Comment · Share ·

ANDERS TAPOLA

Desig Editor, Smålandsposten SNDS Board Member, former SNDS President www.smp.se “‘Really? Facebook World’s Best Digital Designed?!’

That was my spontaneous reaction on Facebook when I read the reasoning from the SND jury. Very surprising, to say the least. Some others also reacted the PH same, as Dan Zedek at the Boston Globe OTO : PR and Alberto Cairo. Otherwise, it was mostly quiet.”

Like · Comment · Share ·

ABOUT THE COMPETITION

snd.org/competitions

20 SNDSMagazine 2015|2

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Try it at www.maps4news.com

 “Art belongs to everybody”, a series of posters made for the Helsinki Festival, the largest multi-arts festival in Finland.

“Something happens” Every year, at the judging of the entries in the Best of Scandinavian News Design, one or two entries stand out because of their unique execution, unusual style or surprising expression. This year, the work by Klaus Welp had that effect. The jury decided to award two of Welp’s entries, both for Helsingin Sanomat, and both in the same style – a meticulous illustration technique similar to that of bank notes and stamps. Here at SNDS Magazine, we found it so interesting that we simply wanted to see more of Klaus Welp’s work – and were overwhelmed by both the variety and the high quality of the work he allowed us to show you. Meet Klaus Welp – an artist and illustrator with an attitude and a story to tell.

Told to Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com

Q: For starters, could you tell a bit about your background, education etc.?

A: I got into the graphic design department of the University of industrial arts directly from college. After some turbulent student years in Helsinki I asked the head of the department what was the furthest exchange location. I went to study graphics, photography and painting in Xalapa, Mexico – got into the lively art scene of the city and founded the cultural bar “Tabu”. Surprisingly, it became an instant hit and the

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“place to be”, with local bands, exhibitions and theatre.

After four years in Mexico I got myself a place in Hochschule der Künste, Berlin. Two years in Berlin, mainly focusing on photography, and I asked myself where to go next – back to Finland.

In Finland I have been working as a free-lance graphic designer, illustrator, photographer and artist, and done works for environmental and human rights NGO:s.

For eight years I worked as the Art director and photographer of the sociocultural magazine Voima. In that time I also lead the “Adbusters Finland”, the advertisement parody collective based in the

editing office. We got the Finnish Journalist Award “Salli” but also some threatenings with a lawsuits from the companies we were teasing (Volvo, Nokia etc.).

I live and work in a great neighbourhood, a wooden house area in the centre of Helsinki. I mainly do visual journalism and illustrations for newspapers and magazines, but also posters and record covers and I’ve made close to 70 stamps for the Finnish Postal Service.

and Polish theatre posters. I liked their way of sneaking in sublime visual messages under the repression of the communist regime. I got my first lucky assignment as a political cartoonist for a small newspaper.

Then with a lot of self promotion and footwork (no Internet or instagram then) I got to make posters for theaters and illustrations for newspapers and book bublishers.

Q: How did you get started doing illustration?

A: I mostly just start working and something happens. I have a couple of bookmarks I check out once in a while. There is  an overload of stunningly

A: As a youngster I was really affected by political cartoons

Q: How do you find inspiration for your illustrations?

ďƒš An illustration made

for the daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat, for an article about nurses’ working conditions and -hours.

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 23

 Helsingin Sanomat’s Kuukausiliite-monthly supplement requested three illustrator artists to picture their vision on artificial intelligence in future.

beautiful pictures coming out every day, but for me the most impressive ones come with a strong social message; Gerhard Harderer, Banksy or Ai Weiwei just to name some.

Q: Does your combined Finnish/German nationality

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and the fact that you have lived and worked in Mexico influence your work?

A: Yes I think so. As a kid, we travelled a lot to Germany and I got to live two cultures. Mexico was really mind blowing, but the visual affect came later.

Q: Being a freelance illustrator, how do you enter into the dialogue with your clients?

Do you always work from your own studio, or sit in with editors in the newsroom etc.?

A: I mostly communicate via phone or email. It might be the

editors’ strained timetables or just that our work flow has became very smooth this way.

As an art director I learned to see things from the editing office’s perspective – and not to take possible collisions that personally. 

 Helsingin Sanomat Sunday pages cover illustration for an article about NSA infiltrating Nokia phones with the help of Microsoft-operating systems. (Nominated for Silver or Gold in the 2015 Best of Scandinavian News Design competition).

 “Who’s to blame for climate change?”, Helsingin Sanomat

 “Backache, Finland’s national displeasure”,

 Helsingin Sanomat Sunday pages cover illustration for an article about international cyber espionage methods through internet, social media and mobile phones.

Helsingin Sanomat Sunday pages cover illustration (Honourable Mention in the 2015 Best of Scandinavian News Design competition).

Sunday pages cover illustration.

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 25

 “The Finnish ministers as superheroes”, a digital collage for

Helsingin Sanomat NYT-weekly supplement.

 A full spread Helsingin Sanomat career-pages illustration for an article about medicalization in working life.

 “Finland between the two forces”, a full spread illustration for Helsingin Sanomat Sunday pages.

Q: You work in many genres and techniques, and apart from illustration also with graphic design, stamps, editorial photography and your personal art projects. Can you tell us how these genres

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interact? Do you get confused from switching from one area to another, perhaps?

A: I have always liked to fuss around in several fields and sometimes too many. In my

case I had to learn to unwind by force and had a full stop some years ago. Call it burnout or mid-age crisis – I call it my hardest and far out the best “project”. Finding out my personal limits, using a calendar

and taking care of recovery was a totally new thing to me.

But as Bill Watterson’s “Hobbes” says; “Live and don’t learn, that’s us” – I am now in the middle of directing and producing my first short film

 A digital collage for Voima magazine for an article about financial forces misleading the press in climate change issues with tendentious research and lobbying.

that we filmed in Mexico last October.

This fumbling in various professional fields has also the the danger of becoming pretty mediocre in almost everything.

Q: What do you see as the most important role for an illustrator/artist to play in the media landscape and/or in society as such? – what is it that illustration can do that other genres cannot?

A: I also work for big Finnish media houses. Commercialisation and centralisation of the media has its dangers, as we can see in today’s Russia.

Having lived in Mexico for four years, and seeing the blatant

abuse of the media for political or commercial interests, makes me think Finland has it quite well. Still, investigative journalism is being cut dramatically and only numbers and clicks count. The need 

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 27

 The total assortment of a supermarket, personal photographic artwork published in Voima magazine.

PH

KLAUS WELP OTO : PR

 Disabled sports-stamp design and illustration for the Finnish Postal Cervice honouring the world record holder in wheelchair racing Leo Pekka-Tähti and the internationally succesfull archer Saana-Maria Sinisalo.

for slower journalism and well thought visuals is strong.

The problem of illustration is its reactiveness, but when I have my doubts or bad days I tend to think of those polish theatre posters’ sublime messages. Even a badly written article can not spoil a good illustration image. We know that written text and images are processed in different cerebral hemisphere and for this, and maybe idealistically, I think the illustration tells it’s own story.

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Q: What is your own favourite work, and why?

Q: Have you made work that you regret to have made?

A: It has to be the Louis Vuitton parody advertisement “Louserit Vuittuun”. This ironic contortion of the luxury brand means somewhat “Fuck the losers”, and is also featured on the cover of our retrospective book I’m quite proud of.

Other favourites of mine are the works handling climate change, for the importance of the issue.

A: I couldn’t say I regret any particular work but I have made some really lousy illustrations or illustrated bland nonsense-articles. Sometimes lack of money or plain judgement has made me do stuff I wouldn’t show here – but all this crap is also part of the story. Lately I have been lucky to be able to choose the works  I like to do.

www.welp.fi Klaus Welp is a freelance illustrator, photographer, designer and artist with Finnish and German nationalities. He studied at the Aalto University (Helsinki, Finland), the University of Veracruz Facuty of Plastic Arts (Xalapa, Mexico) and at the Berlin University of the Arts (Germany).

Klaus Welp continously contributes to major Finnish newspapers and magazines and is currently working as a full time illustrator and artist from his Helsinki office.

Klaus Welp’s website:  www.welp.fi

 An advertisement parody of the “Louis Vuitton” luxury brand for Voima magazine (photography, copywrite and layout). The

brand contortion “Louserit Vuittuun” translated from Finnish is close to “Fuck the loosers”. Published also on the cover of Voima magazine’s retrospective spoof-ad book. The “Louserit Vuittuun” book, released 2011 by “Into” (intokustannus.fi), shows p ​ arody advertisement​s​ published in Voima between 1999-2011​with a 20-page photo-essay and a written epilogue by Klaus Welp.

SNDSMagazine 2015|2 29

 Editorial Design: Digital and Print is packed with illustrations to underline the descriptive texts. On this spread examples from

Esopus, New York Times Magazine, I.D. and Metropolis illustrate the design factors: contrast, balance, and depth.

Optimize for ease, not for elegance Text by Lars Pryds pryds@mac.com Need inspiration for your editorial design projects – or a brush-up of what goes on in the profession? Two books published in 2014 can help.

Editorial Design: Digital and Print is a revised edition of Yolanda Zappaterra’s splendid 2007 book, and keeping in mind how fast technology is changing it makes sense to add new texts about the digital formats that have appeared.

Basic principles still hold true also for the new platforms, the classic covers shown are

Read on: 5 other great books about editorial design

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as iconic as they were eight years ago and the book is rich with inspiration. However, the main focus is still on print.

The seven chapters are each a mixture of explanatory and/or instructional texts (e.g.

“How to convert inspiration into a layout”), case studies, and competent interviews with designers relevant for the subject of that chapter. Four “Briefs” are targeted at tutors, students, or those teaching themselves and can be really helpful if you need to test your skills or ideas in practice.

A practical timeline showing “The evolution of the printed

page” now includes digital platforms as well and is a handy tool to check events in history. An extensive list of further reading is excellent.

The book’s compact format makes the pages feel packed with visual info, but body copy is set so small that it is hard to read. Pages with white text on black background are practically illegible – a paradox in a book about print design.

Sharper editing and the exclusion of some content could have paved the way for a more pleasant reading experience.

Designing the Editorial Experience has the experience

as its main focus. The book is in three sections, the first being a brief introduction. The second is 50 pages with short descriptions of “The Elements of Editorial Design” – like Formats, Identity, Anatomy, Layout, Prototyping, etc. One element often overlooked is “Time” – here, we’re reminded that time is an important factor for both content producers, designers and readers – we should optimize for ease, rather than for elegance, as one designer says.

The third and biggest part of the book is a combination of Case Studies and Interviews.

Mario R. García (2002): pure design

Koos Staal (2012): Paperworks NL

A true classic, pure design presents a series of practical design solutions based on García’s decades of experience. The book was sold out years ago, but Mario has generously made it available as a pdf download – free to read or print out.

Follow this link: http://kortlink.dk/74bw

A personal monument over Staal’s long career and a beautiful and tactile introduction to the many uses of paper and print.

See our review in SNDS Magazine no. 2, 2012.

PHOTOS BY LARS PRYDS

 Case study in Designing the Editorial Experience – the London-based It’s Nice That which is primarily a website but also published as quarterly magazine and annual book. The text on yellow background is an interview which continues on the following pages.

Case studies feature many large New York based publications, but also a few European examples like Vanity Fair Italia (addressing the balance between staying true to the flagship publication and finding your own local voice); Spain’s Apartamento – a magazine about creatives’ homes; and Britain’s the Guardian.

A surprising case is that of Rookie (rookiemag.com) – an online magazine for teen girls.

It’s easy to forget that there are other publishers out there besides big traditional players like the New York Times or Huffington Post – and it would

actually have been great to see more of these untraditional publications.

Each case study is accompanied by one or two interviews with people who worked with the design or the develop­ ment of the publication and this gives you the feeling of having been behind the scenes in the process.

A commented “Resources” section recommends further reading – because, with the authors’ words, you must be “prepared to learn continuously and relentlessly”.

These two books are good  places to start.

Lakshmi Bhaskaran (2006): What is Publication Design ?

Exlores how publications connect with readers through aesthetics, emotions, and the way they feel in the hand.

Cath Caldwell & Yolanda Zappaterra (2014): Editorial Design: Digital and print

Sue Apfelbaum and Juliette Cezzar (2014): Designing the Editorial Experience

Laurence King Publishing Paperback, 400 colour illustrations 240 pages, 22.8×19.3 cm ISBN 978-1-78067-164-2 £19.95 www.laurenceking.com

Rockport Publishers Paperback, 250 color illustrations 224 pages, 25.3×20.3 cm ISBN 978-1-59253-895-9 $40.00 www.rockpub.com

Francesco Franci (2013): Designing News How today’s media can become credible, crossplatform news brands, with the designer in an central position.

See our review in SNDS Magazine no. 4, 2013.

Bo Bergström (2008): Essentials of Visual Communication Puts theory into practice, explaining how to achieve a strong communication chain from strategy to design and influences to reach the target audience.

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The SNDS News Design Conference October 1–2, 2015 Copenhagen DK conference.snds.org (more info on page 6–9) .