Design journal (SND) by Society for News Design

THE PASSION ISSUE.

Groom it, grow it — and good things happen! INSIDE :: WORLD’S-BEST DESIGNED SHOWCASE

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S N D F O U N D AT I O N C R O O N E R S

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#SNDSF

do it with

Contents

Design Journal No. 114 / Fall 2015 ISSN 1520-4243

4 A WORD, OR TWO, FROM SND’S PRESIDENT AND IMMEDIATE-PAST PRESIDENT

SND Publications Director Julie M. Elman Associate Professor School of Visual Communication Ohio University, Athens, Ohio elman@ohio.edu

Lee Steele gives a nod to the organization’s past and shares his hopes for the future, and David Kordalski reflects on

SND’s accomplishments from the past year. 5 SND OFFICERS / LEADERSHIP

Contributors (thank you!)

6 WORLD’S-BEST DESIGNED: CREAM OF THE CROP

Lars Pryds, Paul Wallen, Amy Webb, Bethany Bickley, Terence Oliver, Karl Gude, Andrea Levy, Sam Hundley, Michael Stoll, Mario Garcia, Tracy Collins, Robert Dorrell, Adonis Durado, Tara McCarty, Lee Steele, Ron Johnson, David Kordalski, Michelle Doe, Tim Goheen, Tian Chi, Gustavo Lo Valvo, Jenna Kendle, Stefan Knapp, Carrie Gee, Martin Gee, Jeremy Gilbert, Ananda Spadt, Andy Rossback, Pattie Reaves, Dan Worthington, Courtney Kan, Heather Barber, Chris Barber, Scott Goldman, Matt Mansfield, Denise Reagan, Patrick Garvin, Jon Wile, Andrea Zagata Crutchmer, Josh Crutchmer, Tim Parks, Katie Myrick, Steve Dorsey, Frank Mina and Roberto Armando Canseco Contreras

A roundup of the winners and runners-up in the annual World’s-Best print and digital competitions.

Special Issue: Passion 18-53 We love it when we have it. And when it’s missing, we long for it, again. In this issue, we look at the many facets of this powerful emotion and how it has a hold on us all.

Special thanks to … Sara Quinn, Suzette Moyer, Stephen Komives, Douglas Okasaki, Sam Berlow, David Berlow and Saghir Ahmed Khan Please recycle this magazine after you’ve had your fill of the passion-filled stories here. Thank you. Illustrations by Julie M. Elman (cover and pages 2, 18 and 22)

Design Journal • Fall 2015

Within the community of visual communication, passion is palpable, for sure. In this special issue of Design Journal, a lineup of the most creative, colorful, fanciful people in the industry give their take on how passion plays into their lives and drives them forward.

20 Lars Pyrds on putting heart behind your work; 23 Paul Wallen on the dark side of passion; 25 Bethany Bickley’s joy of book sculpting; 26 Andrea Levy’s risk-taking Op-Ed pages; 32 Sam Hundley’s passion for found objects; 34 Michael Stoll’s love of the info-ephemera; 36 Terence Oliver on making a difference in the classroom; 42 Karl Gude on setting that passion path right; 44 Amy Webb, proactive about journalism’s future in tech; 45 Adonis Durado champions an amazing soccer ball feat; 46 Mario Garcia revisits his acting roots; 48 Robert Dorrell’s infographics ardor; 50 The many palettes of passion; 52 Tara McCarty recalls a beloved professor; and on pages 22, 36, 41, 43, 49 and 50: Passion Partners muse on their synergistic process! 54 A WORD FROM THE SND FOUNDATION PRESIDENT Tracy Collins highlights how professionals step out of their comfort zone to help the next generation of visual storytellers.

56 #SNDSF: WE {HEART} SAN FRANCISCO

SND organizers are readying for next April’s workshop. (It’s filling up. Register soon!)

“I want my work to seduce people to open their eyes, to read and to think — and with this, make the world a more beautiful and better place.” ST EFAN KNAPP, D I PL D ES I GN ER , D ES I GN CONSU LT I NG ; S ND- DAC H P R ES I DE NT; DI R ECTOR FOR R EG IO N 16

A N OT E F RO M THE EDITOR

About the Journal

Let’s hear it for passion — a driving force for excellence

T Julie M. Elman, SND’s publication director, could not have put this issue out without the help and encouragement of SND Vice President Sara Quinn (and her best buddy, Petey). And yes, they have day (and night) jobs: Elman is currently an associate professor at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio; Quinn is the R.M. Seaton Chair at Kansas State University.

his year, I was one of the judges at the 36th Annual SND Best of News Design Creative Competition in Syracuse. I, along with about two dozen other judges, spent three and a half days looking over thousands of pages from around the world. Being immersed in viewing this array of pages was like diving into a giant vat of excellence over and over, again. I saw an abundance of work that took my breath away. I was so inspired — and yes, somewhat intimidated — by this visual-feast-for-the-eyes-and-soul experience. There was no mistaking the collective sense of passion when looking at all these pages. About a month after my judging experience, I learned that a generous sponsorship by The Khaleej Times in Dubai would allow the Design Journal to see the light of day, again (in print!), after a three-year hiatus. I still had passion on my mind — and now I had this amazing forum for putting a spotlight on that driving force that seems to be behind the very best visual storytelling work that’s out there today. Passion. Get used to seeing that word throughout this issue. There’s really no other way to frame it (although I tried). Passion, passion, passion. I’m going to be shamelessly redundant here, but you know what? I don’t care. Because when passion is your fuel, you can never get enough of it. Drink up.

— Julie M. Elman

Design Journal is published by the Society for News Design. We encourage readers to submit articles, illustrations and pages. Material may be edited for space. We’re OK with reasonable copying of information from this publication for educational purposes only. Opinions expressed in the magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the Society or its officers. The Society for News Design invents, makes, promotes and teaches the world’s best visual journalism. Founded in 1979, we are an international organization for news media professionals and visual communicators. SND hosts the annual Best of News Design competitions, which are open to newspapers, magazines, news sites and apps from around the world. Our annual workshop attracts national and international visual journalists. Join us today at www.snd.org/join!

Our sponsor This issue is brought to you courtesy of Khaleej Times in Dubai. Because of this newspaper’s generosity, Design Journal is back — and we are grateful.

Just our type Thank you Sam Berlow, David Berlow and the The Font Bureau, Inc. (www.fontbureau.com) for your typeface contributions to this issue. See page 59 for details.

snd.org • Design Journal

society for news design A NOT E F RO M T H E PR ES IDENT

Through changes over time, storytelling is core

O “Storytelling will always matter,” says Lee Steele, SND president. It’s a message that has always rung true for SND. Steele is the design editor for Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

ur Washington, D.C., workshop in April opened my eyes to a couple of things. One, I hadn’t fully appreciated what a robust design community exists inside the beltway. The hospitality of the Newseum, NPR, The Washington Post and National Geographic underscored that point. And then there were all the students and recent grads I got to know. I was on a judging team for the Missouri School of Journalism’s SSND College News Design Contest. Judging student contests is a little like gazing into a crystal ball. How skilled are the next crop of entry-level visual journalists? Some students in the print category had tearsheets that showed they were capable of immersing themselves in a topic with passion and drive — and then taking those topics into fresh and daring presentations. At one point, we found ourselves marveling at

two distinct student print portfolios. One student had assembled a multi-page features package with strong type and visuals, with lots of helpful and often clever breakouts and sidebars. The other student was a fine artist and savvy typographer, and had distilled complicated and weighty topics into haunting and thoughtful presentations. One entry was fun, facts-driven and well organized; the other, emotional and empathetic. More importantly, both students told their stories clearly and directly. Young people I encounter at SND events seem to get it, and their portfolios prove it. Technologies and tastes change, but storytelling will always matter. This has been SND’s consistent message since its members used X-Acto blades and border tape — and always will be.

— Lee Steele

A NOT E F RO M T H E IMMEDIATE PAST PR ES IDENT

Looking back — and forward — with the 3 C’s

C The three C’s: creativity, collaboration and change — helped shaped the mindset to set a new, innovative course for SND, says David Kordalski, immediate past president of SND. Kordalski is the AME/Visuals at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

reativity, collaboration and change. We all rely on those three constants of presentation journalism — and have since SND was founded — to guide us to solutions for thorny issues we face and to feed our hunger for storytelling. Visual and digital journalists are often passionate agents of change. We’re the first to champion new tools and technology, first to partner to tell a story and first to recognize the potential of the possible. Fueling that passion? Creativity, collaboration and change. So when SND was in need of an organizational reset, we looked to the three C’s. In turn, they led us to one of the most innovative years in SND history. Consider that we: Reorganized the SND board with fresh faces and new job descriptions to better respond to your needs. Revitalized the SND Foundation to get it back to its mission — and to fiscal health.

Moved the annual workshop to the spring, to put it in better sync with our competitions and the academic calendar. Created “SND Makes,” an innovative digital prototyping event that connects new- and old-media professionals, students and educators through collaboration and design-thinking techniques. Secured more grant money than any time in SND history in order to expand programs and student outreach. And finally, we’ve re-launched Design Journal after too long a hiatus. It’s a critical, tangible link between you and the organization. Fittingly, the theme of the first reprised edition is passion — ignited by creativity, collaboration and change. Enjoy!

— David Kordalski

SND: There’s passion behind everything we do

Become an SND member today — go to snd.org/join.

We know you’ve got the passion. Now, marry that with becoming an SND member. Here are the perks: • A discount on the SND Annual Workshop & Exhibition — three days of inspiration and networking with people from all over the world. •Discounts on one- and two-day

regional Quick Courses, which cover a wide range of topics. • Automatic invitations to participate in the annual Best of News Design Creative Competition and opportunities to serve as a judge or facilitator. • A copy of The Best of News Design, an annual book with

SND Officers

SND leadership across the board

President Lee Steele Design Editor Hearst Connecticut Newspapers Bridgeport, Connecticut lee@leesteele.com

Regional Directors

Vice President Sara Quinn R.M. Seaton Chair Kansas State University Manhattan, Kansas saraquinnmedia@gmail.com Secretary/Treasurer Douglas Okasaki Senior Designer Gulf News Dubai, United Arab Emerites dokasaki@gulfnews.com Immediate Past President David Kordalski AME/Visuals Cleveland Plain Dealer Cleveland, Ohio DKordalski@plaind.com SND Foundation President Tracy Collins Director Phoenix Design Studio at Gannett Phoenix, Arizona tacollins@gannett.com

Region 1 — U.S. and Canada Adrian Norris Creative Director, The Globe and Mail Region 11 — Mexico and Central America Oscar Santiago Méndez Design Director, El Financiero Newspaper; Grupo Lauman Region 12 — South America Gustavo Lo Valvo Design Director, Clarín Region 13 — SND/Scandinavia Flemming Hvidtfeldt SND/S President; BLM, Berlingske Media Region 14 — SND/Mediterranean Javier Errea SND/España President; Principal, Javier Errea Comunicación

Region 21 — SND Chinese Tian Chi Design Editor, China Daily Program Directors

Outreach Director Matt Mansfield Digital Director, CQ Roll Call and Visiting Professor, Medill School, Northwestern University

Best of News Design Print Competition Josh Crutchmer Design and Graphics Editor, The Plain Dealer

Print Publications Director Julie M. Elman Associate Professor, School of Visual Communication, Ohio University

36th Edition Competition Coordinator Andrea Zagata Crutchmer Lead Sports Designer, The Plain Dealer

Education Director: U.S. Darren A. Sanefski Assistant Professor of Multiple Platform Journalism, University of Mississippi

Annual Book Steve Layton Lecturer, University of Indiana

Education Director: Non-U.S. H. Michael Stoll Professor/Information Design, Augsburg University of Applied Sciences

Best of Digital Design Ryan Sparrow Instructor, Ball State University

Region 15 — Western Europe Cath Levett Graphics Editor, The Independent

International Relations Cristóbal Edwards Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile’s School of Journalism

Region 16 — SND/Dach (German-speaking countries) Stefan Knapp SND-Dach President; DIPL Designer, Design Consulting

Training Chris Courtney Freelance Developer

SND Executive Director Stephen Komives* Society for News Design 424 E. Central Blvd. Suite 406 Orlando, FL 32801 skomives@snd.org

Region 17 — Russia (and Russian-language newspapers) Fyodor Shumilov Founder, Parovoz, infographic studio

* Send address changes to Stephen Komives

Region 18 — SND/France Melina Zerbib Digital Design Director, Le Monde

images of the winning competition entries and judges’ comments. • Opportunities for portfolio reviews and mentoring from SND top-notch colleagues. • Opportunities to network with journalists and designers from around the world. • The amazing Design Journal!

Digital Director Kyle Ellis Product Development Manager, American City Business Journals Technology Director Miranda Mulligan Creative Director, NG Digital at National Geographic

Diversity Director Ramla Mahmood Designer, Vox Media Executive Board Member, At-Large Tyson Evans Editor for Newsroom Strategy, The New York Times Annual Workshop Chairs (San Francisco, 2016) Frank Mina Design Director, The Seattle Times and Elizabeth Burr Senior Art Director, San Francisco Chronicle SND Foundation President Tracy Collins Director, Phoenix Design Studio at Gannett

Region 19 — Asia, South-Pacific T.K. Sajeev Kumar Visual Editor, Kerala Kaumudi

Design Director Jon Wile Director, Design and Research, American City Business Journals

Region 20 — Africa + Middle East Osama Aljawish Designer, Times of Oman/al Shabiba

On social media: @snd (TWITTER) ; @societyfornewsdesign (INSTAGRAM) ; Society for News Design (FACEBOOK + LINKEDIN) snd.org • Design Journal

world’s-best designed

winners / print competition

“I WISH THIS WAS MY PAPER.” Dagens Nyheter

Panel of five judges agrees on four newspapers whose “brilliance was inescapable” After days of intense reading, studying and discussing, a team of judges at the Society for News Design Creative Competition in Syracuse this past April recognized four newspapers entered in the World’s Best-Designed Newspaper category for their excellence in design. The number of international and national entries was 215. Here are the publications that emerged on top. With the level of excellence they encountered, judges said, they found themselves championing too many papers. A common refrain around the table: “I wish this was my paper. I wish this landed on my doorstep each morning.” In the end, they said, the four they selected were papers “whose brilliance was inescapable to each judge, regardless of the different backgrounds we brought to the competition.” Let’s have a look at these top winners.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

(Sweden)

“The average Dagens Nyheter is really beautiful and when they have something special to go after, they do it in such a big and beautiful way.

Excerpts from the judges’ comments. See what they had to say about each of the winners at http://www. snd.org/2015/ 04/31666/

“We’ve seen other publications that have a beautiful baseline and then struggle when to go big, but that does not happen with this paper. The emphasis on order is the starting point for them; it’s not an end in itself. In this case they use it as a place to start. “The illustrations are beautiful — amazingly contemporary and yet really true to the stories. “They understand when to take their shots. We talked a lot about newsrooms that swing hard all the time. This is a newsroom that knows when to swing hard and when they do … whoa.”

world’s-best designed

winners / print competition

“What set this group of papers apart was the consistency of the intensity and dedication they poured into the product.” — WORLD’S-BEST JUDGES FOR PRINT

Design Journal • Fall 2015

De Morgen

(Belgium)

“There is an energy that keeps running through this entire paper — there’s no tail off. The fronts are always a surprise, without an obvious template or formula. They are a delight. “De Morgen, a Flemish paper in Brussels, took the organization that we saw in Scandinavian papers and infused it with so much life. It could so easily careen out of control but it never does. “It is incredibly detailed without being complicated. De Morgan exhibits a control over white spaces that many papers simply lose. “There is a near-perfect balance between the illustration and photography selections. “The pages are filled with images of, often, solitary people. But the portraiture is never staid; instead they fill the paper with personalities.”

The Guardian (United Kingdom)

“We came to The Guardian with an expectation that it would deliver great visual journalism, but even with those expectations, it amazed us with its energy and how many surprises it delivered throughout. “It sets a standard for the industry in just about every discipline for a print publication. “It’s not just great typography — it’s smart words in the great typography, and it runs throughout this paper. And it’s not just great photography — it’s great photo editing to showcase that photography. … “The Guardian understands the moments and frames them in a way that makes the reader stop and take note. “For a paper with a reputation as a hard left, very serious paper, we found an awful lot of whimsy in there, too.”

snd.org • Design Journal

world’s-best designed

winners / print competition

Politiken

(Denmark)

“The range of this paper is incredible. “How many papers can toggle between calling out the government on going to war, and then do a full-page whimsical World Cup illustration on their covers? “No matter which tool they’re using — typography, photography, illustration, art direction — they use it as well as anyone. And Politiken is doing it day in and day out. “They don’t take themselves too seriously. They take the news of the day seriously — regardless of what that news of the day is. “It is a paper that is daring and bold and fearless in their photo selection. “They strike an excellent balance between long-form and quick reads, and they pivot between them from page to page. They are exceedingly nimble.”

Design Journal • Fall 2015

runners-up / print competition

“Among the finalists, nearly every one had at least one judge championing its cause to move on — that’s how good they all are. And that’s how difficult it was to choose the papers that would ultimately be named World’s Best.” — WORLD’S-BEST JUDGES FOR PRINT

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden)

The Washington Post (United States)

snd.org • Design Journal

world’s-best designed

runners-ups / print competition

Folha de São Paulo (Brazil)

De Volkskrant (Netherlands)

Welt am Sonntag (Germany)

Design Journal • Fall 2015

“After an initial cut [from 215 papers], we took it down to 58, which we then further cut to 17 finalists over the course of two days. That is the statistical analysis. The reality is considerably more agonizing and also more inspiring than the mere numbers convey.” — WORLD’S-BEST JUDGES FOR PRINT

Los Angeles Times (United States)

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worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s-best designed

runners-ups / print competition

Die Welt (Germany)

The Grid (Canada)

The National Post (Canada)

Design Journal â&#x20AC;˘ Fall 2015

La Nacion (Argentina)

The New York Times (United States)

Exelsior (Mexico)

World’s Best-Designed print competition judges Steve Cavendish (Nashville Scene, now at Washington City Paper), Tracy Collins (Gannett’s Phoenix Design Studio), Anne Marie Owens (National Post), Emmet Smith (Washington Post, now at National Geographic) and Fevzi Yazici (Zaman). Their comments, overall (excerpts): “We saw great work from diverse regions around the world. We saw all manner of formats, dealing with all kinds of content.

Informação (Portugal)

“The best papers we saw were the ones whose journalism transcended their formats. Whether we were looking at tabs, Berliners or broadsheets, it was the visual storytelling — the photography, the graphics, the art direction — that we reacted to. At the very best designed papers, the designers and editors understand how to deftly go beyond the do-no-harm approach to design, helping support a clear editorial voice and amplifying the journalism, both visual and written.”

snd.org • Design Journal

world’s-best designed

winner / digital competition

“FACEBOOK IS REDEFINING COMMUNITY.” Three judges give thumbs up to one winner that “works. Everywhere. On anything.” The World’s-Best digital judges recognized the crossroads that publications are facing as they move forward. “While the atomic units of content they produce are getting better all the time, the mechanisms to reach their audience have changed,” the digital competition judges noted. “And the expectations of the audience have changed as well.” The changes are coming fast and furious, and the expectations are high. News is now more personal than ever. “The experience people want and expect is one that provides news at a personal level and feels like time well spent. It must be available and enjoyable across all devices. It should work wherever you are and cultivate community,” judges said. One winner, they felt, stood apart from the pack.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

Facebook “This year’s winner provides a richer news experience than any one ‘site,’” judges said. “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. Facebook 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.”

runners-up / digital competition

Harvard Law Review “This site simply embraces the content it has and creates a wonderful experience.”

AJ+ “Clever use of audience engagement for people who want to dig below the surface on topics.”

The New Yorker “A thoroughly enjoyable reading experience.”

Medium “Possibly the next generation platform and publisher. It is a joy to use and looks stunning.”

Twitter

“One of the best user experiences for a news site today. Articles flow into one another.”

YouTube

“Gives you the ability to broadcast and be broadcast to. Twitter can break news fast.”

NPR

“It allows people, if the demand is there, to become ‘stars’ without publishers.”

NPR One

“This site bridges the gap between Web and audio.”

“For many, Facebook is their front page.” — WORLD’S-BEST JUDGES FOR DIGITAL

Quartz

“A hyper-focused experience that delivers on its promise of personalized audio.”

Judges for the World’s Best-Designed Digital competition: Fernando Diaz (The Center for Investigative Reporting, now at Reveal), Ted Irvine (Vox Media) and Martina Schories, (Süeddeutsche Zeitung). Their comments (excerpts): “This year we chose to embrace the superlative of World’s-Best and award only one winner. We judged the finalists and dozens of others on content, audience, overall experience, performance, presentation, community and portability.” ONLINE: In a Q&A at www.snd.org, digital judges weigh in on naming Facebook the World’s Best-designed news website.

snd.org • Design Journal

S P E CI A L ISSUE

WHEN WE HAVE IT, WE REVEL IN IT. And when we don’t, we brood. That deep, crazy passion can be the very thing that lights us up every day. In this issue of Design Journal, creatives from all walks of life reveal how passion plays a role in what they do and dwell on. Here’s hoping you find something here that helps you tap into your own passion mojo, too. ➻

Design Journal • Fall 2015

“Design is a way to improve people’s lives and make this world a better place.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

OTT. Collage on paper by Lars Pryds

Design Journal • Fall 2015

GUSTAVO LO VALVO, DESI GN DI R ECTOR , CLAR Í N

L O V E L E T T E R That, folks, is my signature. It evolved into this contortion as I signed academic forms for my students in the 1980s. Even now, it perplexes bank tellers and check-out clerks who just can’t see the union of “R” and “J,” let alone any “-on” or “-ohnson.” It’s tough to duplicate, and I like it that way. — RON JOHNSON, STUDENT MEDIA DIRECTOR AT INDIANA UNIVERSITY

WHEN THE HEART RULES

DON’T GET RICH, GET PASSIONATE. LARS PRYDS ON WHERE ARTISTRY AND THE PROFESSIONAL WORLDS INTERSECT

R “Get your heart into it,” advises Lars Pryds. Citing Sir John Hegarty, he says, “Stop thinking and start feeling.”

“

Graphic design history is rich with examples of people who were both artists and designers.”

ecently, when I was complaining that my work probably would not make me a millionaire this year either, a friend of mine said, “I’m so glad to hear. If you get rich from what you do, the question is whether passion or greed motivates you …” He definitely has a point. It’s nice to be able to make a living, of course, but when passion sets in, your main concern is not whether it’s profitable, or not to spend an extra hour or two to get it exactly right. In a tight production setup it’s often not possible to add that extra time, though, as time spent is money spent. I’ve seen my share of compromises made close to deadline, and some of them really were not pretty – but they were finished within schedule. In your own projects, it’s different. You decide the pace, you select the themes, you set the deadline, if any. It’s not necessarily easier to get things right, but you’re not bound by petty demands

from editors, managers, or clients. This is where, with the words of advertising guru Sir John Hegarty, you can stop thinking and start feeling. But is it possible to combine the passion of personal projects with the production demands of, let’s say, a magazine or news website? I would say yes. And honestly, it’s where the two meet that things start getting really interesting. Graphic design history is rich with examples of people who were both artists and designers. It is possible to be good at different things, and trust me, readers and users will immediately recognize if your work is driven by passion. So get your heart into it. Hegarty again, agreeing with my friend: “Remember money isn’t a philosophy, it’s a tool. It’s the last reason why you should do anything.” Lars Pryds is an artist/graphic designer for MD; owner of Tolstrup Pryds Graphics and editor of SNDS Magazine (Scandinavia).

snd.org • Design Journal

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

Passion Partners When one has a creative partner, muse, inspiration — whatever you want to call it — it can generate this awesome, amazing synergy. Teamwork at its best!

CARRIE GEE AND MARTIN GEE Both are Senior Art Directors at TIME How did you two first meet? (Martin) We met at SND Houston when I critiqued her portfolio. (Thanks SND!) How does passion for what you do play into your relationship with each other? What we do is who we are! When we worked apart, we talked shop 24/7, and do so even more now and continue to learn from each other. Describe how you work. We’ve always worked separately on our own projects. She has her lettering and I have my Lego robots. We definitely want to do more together like writing and illustrating a children’s book. Your creative partnership in three words: Cats, cats and cats. =) Meet more Passion Partners and read their Q&A’s throughout this special section. ➸

Design Journal • Fall 2015

ANTHONY J. D’ANGE LO, FOUNDE R , COLLEGI ATE E MPOWE R M ENT

Letterforms from the ’30s convey optimism despite the intensely difficult times during which they were created. This center-court floor is in the Fieldhouse at Chicago’s River Park on the northwest side of the city. It shows how design decisions, no matter how temporary they may seem, could last for generations. P.S. And I love remembering all things Chicago.

LOVE LETTER(S)

— JEREMY GILBERT, DIRECTOR OF STRATEGIC INITIATIVES AT THE WASHINGTON POST

THE FLIP SIDE OF PASSION

When a spirited ’tude turns to angry and rude PAUL WALLEN ON HOW YOU CAN LOVE WHAT YOU DO — WITHOUT ALL THE DRAMA

H Paul Wallen says he didn’t become a master of mellow all at once. It took time.

“

I had to learn to control that passion, so it didn’t hurt my collaborative relationships … and derail my career.”

i, my name is Paul and I’m a hothead. More accurately, I’m a reformed hothead. Apparently I’m so calm and even-keeled these days that people can’t seem to even imagine me losing my temper. When the topic came up recently with my current colleagues, I confessed to an embarrassing incident from my first job years ago when I kicked over a newspaper stand during an argument with a photographer. The reaction to that story? Laughter. Disbelief. Mostly laughter. I can laugh about it now, too, but it wasn’t so funny early in my career when passion for my work bubbled over into frustration a little too easily at times. It’s amazing how much difference an adjective can make. We praise people who are passionate, intense, dedicated, spirited, or eager; we avoid people who are moody, temperamental, confrontational, angry, or overzealous. One set of adjectives gets you hired, promoted and admired; the other gets you rejected, demoted and fired. They’re all just two sides of the same emotional coin, yet we rarely talk about just how ultra thin the dividing line between them can be. As a young professional, my greatest strength was that I truly loved my work. But I had to learn how to control that passion so it didn’t hurt my collaborative relationships, damage my reputation and derail my career. Let’s be honest: I didn’t become a master of mellow all at once, and getting older certainly has a way of rounding out some of those sharp edges. But I did learn a few lessons along the way that might come in handy if you have an inner hothead in need of reforming: Wait to communicate until you’re calm: Maybe you’ve seen the

Snickers candy bar commercials with the tag line, “You’re not you when you’re hungry.” Well, you’re not you when you are stressed, Illustration by Julie M. Elman

snd.org • Design Journal

“When done right, visuals will help readers to understand the stories more effectively.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

TI AN CHI , DESI GN E DI TOR , CHI NA DAI LY

F I NDI NG T H E B ALAN C E : OT H E RS W E I G H I N “You know that innocent question

“If your colleagues don’t

“I find balance with my work

“The tipping point of passion is

people always ask, ‘What do you

share your passion and

and the other areas of my

anger, and one of the greatest

do for fun?’ I used to dread that

enthusiasm for an idea,

life. I feel so lucky that I get

lessons my dad taught me is

question, because my honest

you should also entertain

to spend every day at a job

when anger arises, your brain shuts off. Let passion be the

answer was that I worked. Work

that it may not be that

where I get such a sense of

was fun, my fun was working …

good of an idea. I used

meaning and accomplish-

key that starts your engine.

but people look at you funny if

to be frustrated when

ment, but I know that if I

But let respect serve as your

you say that sort of thing out

editors changed my work.

didn’t have my job tomorrow,

brakes. Embrace your passion

loud. I didn’t believe in ‘work-life

Then one encouraged

it wouldn’t change who I am.

for wanting to create amazing

balance’ until I found my creative

me to listen. My work

It’s healthy to have other

work. Stand up for the things

banks were depleted from

improved. It’s rarely about

passions and interests, and

you want. But don’t be reckless

working without taking time to

ego — most people want

for me, that’s been running.”

behind the wheel. Knowing when

recharge. So now, for fun, I like

to make you better.”

to floor it comes with expe-

to bike, and do crafts with my

Andy Rossback, Designer, The Marshall Project

Pattie Reaves, User Experience and Audience Manager at BDN (Bangor Daily News) Maine

daughter, and garden, and work.” Ananda Spadt, Assistant Art Director, Meredith Corporation

rience and relationships, but should never be done if you are disrespecting your co-workers.” Dan Worthington, Lead Sports Designer, The Washington Post

THE DARKER SIDE OF PASSION // CONTINUED upset or angry either. The fight-or-flight response hardwired into your brain releases adrenaline to your bloodstream, quickens your heartbeat and tenses your muscles. This is very helpful if you’re being chased by a sabre-toothed tiger, but doesn’t exactly lead to good communication or thoughtful decisions in the modern workplace. When you’re even a little emotional, you’re much more likely to misperceive and overreact to what is happening around you. So learn to recognize the signals your body is sending, let the emotion pass and make sure you are you again before reacting, responding, or interacting with others. Take a quick break: Remember that

fight-or-flight thing? Yeah, you can’t really control that. And even if you think you’re hiding it from the people around you, trust me — you are not. The best thing

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to do is go have a private moment until you’re feeling calm again. Go to lunch. Take a little walk. If nothing else, go to the restroom and take a few deep breaths. Just find a way to be alone for a few minutes and regroup. Don’t take it personally: When you pour

your heart and soul into your work, it becomes all too easy to view criticism as personal attacks, challenges as confrontations and obstacles as battles. Here’s the thing: It’s usually not about you. So try to keep things at arm’s length to remain objective. And if the people you work with need a little convincing, your chances of success are much greater with a dispassionate, articulate argument than an emotional rant. Watch out for the snowball effect:

Here’s a funny little thing about human

nature. The person or thing that causes you to lose your temper is very often not the person or thing that you’re actually upset about. Maybe it’s something that happened earlier in the day or week that you haven’t truly let go of yet, or the cumulative effect of several annoyances. Next thing you know, you’re flying off the handle about something … only to look back later and wonder why you got so upset. Avoid the emotional snowball by either truly letting go of annoyances or resolving to do something about them — when you’re calm. Keep a running list of problems you want to solve so that you can think about them and come up with different solutions. If you’re having trouble with a co-worker, invite them for a coffee to talk it out sometime. Paul Wallen is a senior designer at ESPN magazine.

L O V E L E T T E R I love three-dimensional signage. (I drive by an old train depot building in Kansas every couple of years, in hopes that the “S” will finally drop off of the sign and I can run away with it.) This Futura-ish “Q” is a favorite: so symmetrical, and so not. — SARA QUINN, R.M. SEATON CHAIR AT KANSAS STATE UNIVERSITY AND SND VICE PRESIDENT

Reveling in the fine print For Bethany Bickley, paper + glue + attention to detail = scenes of wonder.

have always been passionate about creating artwork with my hands, but there is something about the process of creating a miniature, whimsical world out of paper and glue that is really exciting. It’s a mix of problem solving and imagination. A mathematician is passionate about solving equations — the scenes I am creating are my equations. To get the equation right, I have to make the tiny scenes believable and interesting to look at. The details are so important. When I have figured out how to sculpt a skull, or a bird, I have actually clapped my hands and laughed with a sense of accomplishment. The next level is photographing the sculpture — and I’ve worked with some great photographers. To me, every sculpture has come out even better in the photo than it looks in person. That really is the best feeling. Bethany Bickley is lead designer of the Pacific Business News in Hawaii. Paper sculpture by Bethany Bickley; Photograph by L. Todd Spencer

snd.org • Design Journal

MICHAEL BROWN “This featureless silhouette is the way we see a young black man,” Andrea Levy explains. “It’s as good of a portrait of a young black man as any other. But looking at it, it’s not a threatening silhouette.” Levy notes that this page received a lot of controversial feedback from readers.”

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T HE PA S S I ON I S S U E

Heart and soul on every page Andrea Levy goes all in with her Plain Dealer Op-Ed pieces, problem solving like crazy while keeping her fears at bay.

guess I’d have to say this project began as a logical progression from the occasional Op-Ed pieces I had always done at the

Plain Dealer. There isn’t an artist out there that doesn’t know the amount of passion it takes to create art. I’m sure we all formulate many ideas as we refine our concepts and imagery for different topics, whether it’s news, sports or business, etc. What makes opinion work more complicated is the published exposure of those ideas. And that for me, was a real game-changer. I felt completely naked. In fact at times, I would have rather been naked. (And that should tell you everything.) The irony of it all to me is that I am an incredibly private person. That said, I’m not sure there’d be any way to stand one’s ground in this game without at least some guts. One of the first very controversial pieces I wrote gave me a full-

snd.org • Design Journal

GROW A PAIR Andrea Levy says she “made this page on the heels of Jill Abramson’s firing from The New York Times. It was intended to be both humorous and indignant. I wanted it to appeal to all feminists, male and female alike (which it evidently did, from the response I got). As a lover of men, this was no man-hating poster. It was a rally call to everyone.”

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blown panic-attack. I’ve since come to learn that any subject that has teeth to it is going to bring disagreement. We are a highly divided group of citizens. But I can tell you this, I worked like crazy on the pages. My heart and soul was in every one, whether they were successful or not. I suffered every damn sentence. They were like puzzles I had to solve, sometimes originating in the art, sometimes the words. But when the deadline arrived, somehow it all had to fit together. It has been one of the greatest challenges I have faced professionally. It has taught me so much about myself. The plan forward is to produce my opinion work in video. Just like the print column before it, this presents me with a new set of challenges. So once again the bar has been raised. I am thrilled to try, and here’s hoping my passion will follow. Onward! Andrea Levy is an illustrator/photographer/ Op-Ed artist at The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.

Turn the page to see more of Andrea Levy’s work.

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MALALA “I was so inspired by the courage and poise of Malala Yousafzai,” Andrea Levy says, “that I actually ended up furiously painting a 3- by 4-foot painting on canvas. I’m proud to say that canvas was sent on to be auctioned in a fundraiser for a group that has been building schools in Pakistan.”

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TAKING INTELLIGENT RISKS “I realized that the more internal you go and the more you express about your life, the more people can relate.” Andrea Levy shared this anecdote [during her presentation at the SND Workshop in D.C.] about what she has learned after more than a year designing the “Andrea Levy Opinion Art” full-page opinion column and blog for The Plain Dealer. Levy is an awardwinning artist and columnist at that paper and was most recently recognized for her visual Op-Ed portfolio from 2014, winning Best in Show at the SND Annual competition and garnering recognition in the commentary category at the 2014 Scripps Howard Awards. Levy spoke of the intelligent risk-taking that The Plain Dealer champions with her column and offered some tips from her career when tackling sometimes challenging assignments. • Metaphor always works, especially when working with delicate topics. • As an artist, you need someone you can talk to and share things you want to explore. • There’s a perception if you’re creative, you don’t have to think to make it. Ideas are preceded by words. It’s more accessible and easier than you think. • About the pressures of working on deadline, Levy said, “When you get afraid on deadline, when you realize it won’t work, or you don’t have time … if you can think at that moment, I don’t care, I am going to fail. Once you feel that, the doors all just open up again.” • Learn what you care about, that’s a good vehicle for creativity. — Courtney Kan From “Andrea Levy on Taking Intelligent Risks” on snd.org

SEE. SPOT. SHOOT. “This page was an obvious (right?) play on the Dick and Jane books,” writes Andrea Levy. “To me the graphic gunshot combined with the innocent chunky children’s book, created such impact. These two images should not be together. Exactly my point about guns.”

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Design Journal â&#x20AC;˘ Fall 2015

snd.org • Design Journal

manifested itself in my behavior — getting up early to tinker with found-object projects before I reluctantly tore myself away and went to work; weekends filled with creating/building/searching/ assembling — it was like a spigot was turned on full bore. It’s still like that today.

A: The latter — and it

How did you find this passion? Was it an accident? Or did you recognize it as the culmination of all the things you were doing before?

— Sam Hundley, Designer, The Virginian-Pilot

“The idea of ‘passion’ is pretty interesting. You naturally think of that as something you have in great quantity in your youth, but I was never really ‘passionate’ about art until very recently. Passion, for me, came relatively late, because I found what I truly love to do late in my career.”

“Passion makes idiots of the cleverest men, and makes the biggest idiots clever.” T H E PASSIO N ISSUE

Wasp chart. “When this chart, called ‘The Most Common Types of Wasps’ arrived on my desk, I was really amazed about what I got: No offset printing, not lithography. The whole chart is hand drawn!”

3-D atlas. “This 1905 model atlas by Gustav Riepke, ‘The Mechanical Engineer,’ was a yearly supplement to a magazine published with the same title.”

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FRANÇOI S DE LA ROCHE FOUCAULD, NOBLE AND WR I TE R

L O V E L E T T E R Em mean, it’s simple but … That pause — deliberate, resolute. That lovingly long em dash, delightfully designed to be a stretch wider than its brothers to make you extend one more beat. It’s just a line, but a continuous, defined line. A line with purpose — a line to love. — MICHELLE DOE, GRAPHIC ARTIST AND DESIGNER, THE DENVER POST

BRINGING VISUAL HISTORY TO LIFE

The ongoing quest for touch, discovery … and surprise THE ACQUISITION OF INFOGRAPHICS IS EASY, SAYS MICHAEL STOLL — IT’S THE CONTEXT THAT’S HARDER TO COME BY.

Michael Stoll, a collector of historic infographics, pulled together diverse pieces from his large collection to create a traveling exhibition called “History of Infographics.”

randma asked me to choose one book from the shelf as a memento when she moved to a home for elderly people. Which one should a 10-year-old pick? I went home with a 1905 geographical atlas and soon was impressed by planetary diagrams and maps stating areas as “still undiscovered.” With today’s Internet, it is easy to access thousands of historic infographics online, but I am more interested in learning about the context they were published in. While a lot of libraries throw out books nowadays (not knowing what they are doing), it is easy to acquire infographic textbooks, maps, or atlases. The more difficult part of this process is to figure out which items contain infographics. The hunt compares a bit to free diving, where new, yet old stuff appears in front of your eyes like a sunken ghost ship, where strange obstacles mark your way, and you would communicate with only a few also down there. To this day, learning from infographic history still leaves me fascinated. I highly admire the journalistic, conceptual, technical and design efforts of early infographic artists — whose purpose was to educate people. My students love to learn about the mostly unknown history though the actual items — textbooks, maps and atlases — that sit on my desk. One should never underestimate the haptics of (historic) infographics. Professor Michael Stoll teaches media theory and infography in the Department of Design at the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

Esso Panoramic Map of the German Alps from the 1950s. “A stunning map that instantly makes you want to visit the Alps — by car, of course. And look how the soft warm evening sun is coloring the mountains in a very special way. [This is] new in my collection.”

“

The hunt compares a bit to free diving, where new, yet old stuff appears in front of your eyes like a sunken ghost ship.”

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“Once something is a passion, the motivation is there.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

Passion Partners Creative partners muse on their synergistic process

MI CHAE L SCHUMACHE R , R E TI R E D RACI NG DR I V E R

STEPPING UP FOR THE NEXT GENERATION

PREPARE TO FLY!

TERENCE OLIVER ON THE WAYS HE HELPS

MOTIVATE HIS UNC STUDENTS TO SOAR

HEATHER BARBER AND CHRIS BARBER Art Director at Politico, http://barbershopdesign.com; Art Director at The Washington Post; How did you two first meet? (Chris) We met at Ball State University while attending journalism school. How does passion for what you do play into your relationship with each other? It’s nice to have a partner that understands what you do and who you can trust to be honest about your work. We’re both creative people, and enjoy art and design — that plays into how we set up our house, where we take vacations and what we do for fun. Describe how you work. When starting a freelance project together we set and prioritize our goals and brainstorm ideas. Heather has worked as a project manager and has a great process for staying organized and getting the work done on time. Once we have a direction, we tend to work independently. As we progress, we evaluate each other’s work and eventually decide which designs work best before we send roughs to a client. We recently took on a Wordpress website design. Everything about it was new to us so we were starting from scratch. We both spent time learning how everything worked and took turns creating versions. In this case we let the client choose how we progressed. We sought each other’s advice and both helped troubleshoot issues along the way to make the project a success. Your creative partnership in three words: Keep it simple.

See other Passion Partners Q&A’s throughout this section.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

➸

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Associate Professor Terence Oliver is known for his innovative and lively teaching style.

“

In order to help students to take flight, I try to motivate them not to settle … with where they are, but to stretch and take risks.”

ho doesn’t love an eagle? I know I do. When asking students to describe an eagle, many words come to mind, including noble, proud, graceful, glorious, dignified, swift, smart, fierce and majestic. As visual storytellers, it helps to tell a few visual stories every once in a while, especially when teaching. Picture this: As a professor, I burst into the classroom holding a nest high in the air. I enthusiastically exclaim, “An eagle takes good care of its baby eaglets and provides a safe place for them!” Then I dramatically and wildly start pulling cotton, feathers and all things soft out of the nest. This leads to my motivational point as I explain how the nest was only meant to be a comfortable and nurturing place for a season. So as the feathers, the cotton and all things soft fall slowly to the ground, the nest begins to stick, pinch and poke the young eagles, making them very uncomfortable. You may ask why would

L O V E L E T T E R I’m crazy about ampersands in general, but this Baskerville italic one has always caught my eye. The curves (looks like snowbanks to me), the bulbous endpoints (here shown facing off), the swoosh of the strokes (perfect for sled-riding) give this letterform such an elegant, personable feel. Ampersands remind me that connecting can always be done with grace & style. — JULIE M. ELMAN, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, OHIO UNIVERSITY, AND SND PUBLICATIONS DIRECTOR

Photo courtesy of Terence Oliver

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“If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

STEV E JOBS, CO-FOUNDE R OF APPLE I NC.

The Polar Bear infographic, at left, won First Place in the Features category in the MSUSND 2015 competition. The What is Human Trafficking infographic, right, was part of a special section, which won First Place in that contest in 2014.

a mother do this to her child? I further explain, “In the place of challenge, with all the sticking, prodding and poking, is where the young eagle must transform into who it was truly meant to be!” Like young eagles, if we are not challenged we can become dependent, weak, or even dormant, and never stretch to our full potential and capabilities. As a professor, in order to help students to take flight, I try to motivate them not to settle, or be satisfied with where they are, but to stretch and take risks as they identify where they could be rather than where they are. So whether it’s holding up a nest and throwing cotton and feathers all over the place, or wearing a Superman suit in front of 300 freshman every year, the whole point is to help students realize that they can take flight like an eagle and be smart, fierce, majestic — and so much more.

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5 1

steps to motivating students Terence Oliver’s students rise and shine — here’s how he does it.

// Believe in students. Commit to students. Show students you care. On the first day of class, don’t try to rush into assignments; you have all semester for that. It is more important to try to understand who each student is and the unique values and goals that each of them brings into the classroom. Remember to listen more than you talk. Invariably, I take my time to find out unique information about each individual, and at the same time show them that I care and will be committed to them. As a professor it is important to remember WHY you are here. Don’t just talk about it — be about it!

L O V E L E T T E R Handwriting always gets my attention, but it is quite difficult to use it in a day-by-day news design routine. Usually we are constrained with specific fonts that are part of the publication stylesheet. You’re lucky if your project has a large variation of styles — a smart choice is crucial for the publication, and also for the designer’s daily mood. — DOUGLAS OKASAKI, SENIOR DESIGNER AT GULF NEWS AND SND SECRETARY/TREASURER

// Help students value the moment. I often tell students, “To make a difference, be the difference!” Realizing that for whatever reason, the professor and students’ lives have all crossed paths at this special moment in time, everyone should cherish it and make the best of it; maximize the moment. While is it important to establish standards by showing great student work from the past, it is more important for current students to realize that those same students were in the same seats not long ago, but it’s their time for greatness now. Show the past, but point to the future. As Robin Williams reflected on past students in the movie “Dead Poets Society,” he encouraged them to lean in close as they looked at old photos as he gently whispered, “Listen, you hear it? … Carpe … hear it? … Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day ... make your lives extraordinary.” Once you can get students to embrace the moment, it becomes the perfect platform to point toward the next steps to greatness.

Spark magazine was awarded First Place in the MSUSND 2015 competition in the Special Section category.

snd.org • Design Journal

“Skill is the unified force of experience, intellect and passion in their operation.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

JOHN RUSK I N, ART CR I TI C OF THE V I CTOR I AN E RA

A True Companion infographic, above, won First Place in the infographics category in the MSUSND competition for 2014. At right, Flourish magazine won First Place in 2014 in the iPad category in the contest.

// Help students abandon their comfort zones. Challenge students to stop settling for the status quo. Students seem to always be ready for the challenge and are just waiting for an enthusiastic leader to throw down the gauntlet. We all thrive with challenge. So like the sticking, pinching and poking of the eagle’s nest, aim to motivate the students out of their place of comfort so they can understand the unique value that they each bring to the table. They need to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Never get comfortable with the comfortable, or it becomes your standard. Give students the push they need to aim high. It is said that it is better to aim high and miss than to aim low and hit. Students can always do more than they originally expect.

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// Be in tune with teachable moments — those unexpected moments when opportunity presents itself so you can expand or build on something that wasn’t in the original lesson plan. In order to capture those moments, you must expect the unexpected. I always leave flexibility in the syllabus for unexpected opportunities that invariably will arise. This allows you to be “in the moment.” It allows you to take advantage of breaking news, research opportunities, collaborations with other educators, clients or professionals; anything that crops up and presents itself as opportunity to make teaching better. That’s how we “stumbled upon” recent practical (and award-winning) investigative subjects such as sex trafficking, domestic violence and drunk driving. All of these unexpected opportunities presented themselves after the initial class planning, and each also led to numerous survivors showing up to the classroom with heart-felt testimonials that added even more teachable moments. These moments would not have happened if things were planned out too tightly. Don’t be afraid to be flexible, because flexibility can lead to unforgettable teachable moments.

L O V E L E T T E R The black box to the left is my favorite font letter. It’s a lowercase “n,” or rather, it’s a Zapf Dingbat black box. A long time ago, for an infographics person, having the ability to easily add a bullet point to a text block, aligned and proportioned accordingly, was a big deal. Seriously. BTW, this type font is Optima, which the late, great Hermann Zapf (1918-2015) also designed. — TIM GOHEEN, DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION, OHIO UNIVERSITY

Passion Partners Creative partners muse on their synergistic process

SCOTT GOLDMAN AND MATT MANSFIELD Director of Digital Content at CQ Roll Call; Senior Director for Content Strategy at Angie’s List How did you two first meet? (Matt) We met, naturally, at an SND Workshop. … At the time, I was at The Times of Munster (Indiana) and Scott was at The Charlotte Observer. We became friends right away but didn’t have the chance to work together for several years.

5 //

Nurture greatness. They say the path to success is where preparation and opportunity meet. In order to help students prepare for their potential greatness and seize opportunity, it is important as a leader to embody a nurturing mindset inside and outside the classroom. Teaching is not something you have to do, it is something that you GET to do. If we could just embrace and adopt this mantra, we can begin to help others realize who they are. Like an eagle in the nest, there are some basic necessities that help little ones thrive, nurture and grow. A few that come to mind are food, shelter, care — and even challenge. Remember that each student is uniquely gifted and that you get to figure out what each individual needs to grow. Always look out for their best interests, even if it is at the expense of time and energy. Like the eagles, you can’t forget to challenge students, because that is where they will begin to figure out who they are and what they can do. As a motivational reminder, you can even hold up a nest and shout with me, “You were not born for the nest, you were born to fly!”

How does passion for what you do play into your relationship with each other? We care deeply about visual design and delivering information that helps people understand the world. We’ve each been fortunate enough in our careers to work at great content organizations and with great journalists. And we’ve each led fantastic, nimble teams of visual journalists. We talk often about how our “day jobs” evolve, and how we can each get better at what we do. And when we work together, we’re able to bring an energy and focus to our work that we both really feed off, throughout the project. (And, honestly, we bring that kind of energy into our relationship outside of work projects as well. There IS more to life than work.) Describe how you work. It really depends on the project, but usually we work as a team at the start, and we definitely like to work together on rapid prototyping and defining the scope of the project. Then we’ll usually each tackle certain areas separately, and then come back together at the mid-point of a project and especially for deployments. Your creative partnership in three words: Collaborative. Energetic. Fun. (Bonus word: Karaoke.) See other Passion Partners Q&A’s throughout this section. ➸

snd.org • Design Journal

“You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

MAR K TWAI N, AUTHOR AND HUMOR I ST

RY. STUDENTS: PASSION IS PRIMA KARL GUDE’S MESSAGE TO HIS R. M A SEMINAR HE LED THIS YEA HERE ARE SOME EXCERPTS FRO

go with their resumes. I read a lot of students’ cover letters, to see the word “passion” everywhere. I read a lot of your LinkedIn profiles. I

Passion, passion, passion.

E R A U O Y K N I H T I , T BU USING THAT WORD WRONG. Y

ou’re using “passion” in a secondary way. You’re saying, “My passion has always been to work in an advertising agency … My passion has always been to be a journalist in New York, working for a large news organization like yours …” If you’re a drummer, for instance, your passion is drumming. NOT that your passion has always been to play drums

in a rock-and-roll band. If you are an amazing, frickin’ drummer, every band in the world will come to you and say “please be in our band.” Your passion isn’t to be in a band, it’s to be an amazing drummer … or artist or designer or copy writer. You’ve got to realize what your real passion is. Because, if you’re misguided, you’re not going to be very good at what you do.

Karl Gude is an associate professor at Michigan State University.

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L O V E L E T T E R My Farnham Display lower-case g is my work crush, and I am not ashamed. We got to know each other when we were redesigning our Go magazine. It was a challenge to make a two-letter word into an interesting logo, but Farnham’s jaunty curves made it easy. On Sundays, Farnham breaks out an italic swash! I love Sundays … — LEE STEELE, DESIGN EDITOR AT HEARST CONNECTICUT MEDIA GROUP AND SND PRESIDENT

Passion Partners Creative partners muse on their synergistic process

DENISE REAGAN AND PATRICK GARVIN Director of Communications at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville; Designer/Graphic Artist for The Boston Globe, BostonGlobe.com and Boston.com How did you two first meet? (Patrick) I interviewed at The Florida Times-Union in March 2006 for a graphic artist position. Denise had just started as an AME, and I was her first hire. How does passion for what you do play into your relationship with each other? Denise and I clicked when we met, and I realized very quickly during my interview that Denise and I are alike in that we have passion for anything and everything we do. Whether it’s a full page, an interactive, a stock chart, a lunch outing, a pop-culture reference, or a karaoke night, we will not do anything half-assed. Denise is as patient and kind as she is passionate, which made her a great person for whom to work. She had a lot to teach me, and she knew that. But I think she learned from her employees as well, which fostered a perfect working environment. I could pitch any idea, knowing she would hear it out. Our shared sense of passion and wanting to push ourselves bred a trust that continues to today. …

Pan face by Karl Gude

Describe how you work. Together, separate, or both, depending on the project. Sometimes, Denise conceived of an idea and then pitched it, and I’d set to work, checking in with her periodically. Other times, we’d do different parts. Your creative partnership in three words: Super bitchin’ cool. See other Passion Partners Q&A’s throughout this section. ➸

snd.org • Design Journal

“The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

FE R DI NAND FOCH, SOLDI E R AND MI LI TARY THEOR I ST

A L O O K , A N D L E A P, A H E A D

GETTING THE MEDIA INDUSTRY UP TO SPEED AMY WEBB IS DRIVEN TO BLEND

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS INTO THE JOURNALISM OF THE FUTURE

I Amy Webb is a Digital Media Futurist and Founder of Webbmedia Group.

“

I love to dream about what our world will look like 50 years from now.”

Design Journal • Fall 2015

am a relentless optimist who’s simultaneously anxious about many of the emerging technologies I see coming. What my favorite sci-fi writers imagined back in the ’60s — true virtual reality, a connected brain, commercial space travel — will take that magic leap into being within our lifetime. Moore’s Law continues to prove out during a period in which we’re making real progress in teaching computers how to think for themselves. The kind of communications technology that was once reserved for research universities can now fit in our coat pockets. In the next decade, it’ll be implanted into our ears and fitted directly onto our eyes. What this means is that in the far-future, we won’t have a need for physical newspapers or even websites, because we will have fundamentally altered the informational inputs to our brains. I love to dream about what our world will look like 50 years from

Werner Graul, poster for Metropolis, c. 1926

now, but I’m a pragmatist, so professionally I focus on what’s coming in the next two to 15 years. In the near-future, journalism has the potential to harness all this emerging tech in order to ignite a hyper-informed society, and if we do it right, a society that’s more empathetic. But I’m terrified that the innovations within news are too incremental and confined just to the media industry — and that the future infrastructure of journalism is actually being researched, coded, developed, tested and deployed by tech companies for whom quality journalism is an afterthought. What drives and inspires me is thinking about that chasm and figuring out ways to close it.

L O V E L E T T E R The sight of the Block O gives me pure euphoria, particularly during Saturdays in the fall. The beautiful color combination of Scarlet and Gray is my favorite palette to design with on any project. But, please, whatever you do, don’t mention TSUN in my presence. — JON WILE, DIRECTOR, DESIGN AND RESEARCH AT AMERICAN CITY BUSINESS JOURNALS

The Times of Oman created a 3-D ball graphic that could be pieced together by readers. It was part of a special, 64-page supplement.

IT TAKES A TE AM

A whole new ball game ON A CRUSADE TO CHAMPION A TIMES OF OMAN HANDS-ON GRAPHIC, ADONIS DURADO KEEPS HIS EYE ON THE PRIZE

n the Middle East, soccer is regarded almost like a second religion. If you want to strike a conversation with the locals, just name-drop any soccer player. Arabs treat their own favorite players like heroes and rock stars. So it was a tremendous Adonis Durado is the challenge for us visual journalists to come up with design director for unique and out-of-the-box concept for our World the Times of Oman. Cup readers. The Times of Oman 3-D ball graphic is a testament that putting your readers first could lead a surprising result. The idea did not come to us like magic. It was a product of team effort with several months of brainstorming and meticulous planning. Looking back, the orchestration and execution proved to be both fun and agonizing. When Antonio Farach, our graphic editor, presented to me the initial concept of this interactive, hands-on graphic, I championed his idea and fought passionately for it. I made it sure that his beautiful idea wouldn’t be gunned down and would ultimately reach a reality.

snd.org • Design Journal

“There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

FR E DE R I CO FE LLI NI , FI LM DI R ECTOR

TE . “TH EY CA LL ME CU BA N PE

I’M TH E KIN G OF TH E RH UM BA BE AT.

BO OM .” S, I GO “CH ICK -CH ICK -AWH EN I PL AY TH E MA RA CA Still frames from a video performance by Mario Garcia

Design Journal • Fall 2015

This letter, a wood type specimen I’ve collected, speaks to me because I’m intrigued by the history of letterforms and printing — how the ampersand evolved from a ligature, the tradition of shops like Hatch Show Print, the evolution of typefaces over time. One of my favorites, the serif Didot, is both deeply rooted in printing history and associated with iconic brands in its modern interpretations. — COURTNEY KAN, ARIZONA REPUBLIC, GANNETT PHOENIX DESIGN STUDIO

LOVE LETTER

A STAR IS REBORN

Lights! Camera! Passion! MARIO GARCIA REVEALS HOW HE DUSTED HIMSELF OFF

AND REVIVED HIS LONG-HELD DREAM TO PERFORM ON STAGE

hen people ask me if I contemplate thoughts of retiring, my answer is fast and furious: Not at all. Not yet, anyway. I also add that I will know when I am ready to retire, because I will get a signal from my passion radar the moment I get up that morning. Passion is the engine that fuels so much of what I do, that without it I would not be able to travel the globe speaking at seminars, conducting seminars, getting my hands into the rethinking of newsrooms and the people who populate them. Passion, you may say, is my ever-present companion. The first passion I can remember was for acting. Indeed, as a child actor in Cuba, I did everything from commercials for lemony sodas to radio, telenovelas, several plays (that was my favorite) and a film titled “El Joven Rebelde” (“The Young Rebel”). I thought I would be an actor when I grew up. Geopolitics, a bearded dictator and life had a different plan for me. A good one, I may add, as I developed a passion for storytelling and, particularly, for visual storytelling. That passion remains with me. But passion, like me, wears many hats. Who would think that SND would ask me to do a little performance to benefit the SND Foundation? That turned into a salute to Desi Arnaz and Cuban Pete, complete with bongos and maracas. While the singing and the dancing may not have been all that great, the passion I put into it more than compensated. Suddenly, I was in front of a camera for a performance that had little to do with design and the media quartet. The pianist who coached me then asked me to sing live one Saturday night at the piano bar where he plays. A person in the audience liked it. Monday I had a call from a producer casting a Web series asking me to audition for a role. Why not, I said! Two auditions later I was turned into the mean Vix Romero for a pilot of “Tenderloin Towers.” And, so, at 68, I am reinventing myself, but not necessarily into unchartered territory. I am reviving a passion of my childhood. Passions don’t go away. You store them away in the attic. Mario the actor dwelled there for 54 years. Dusty and rusty, perhaps, but with the same passion of that child actor who dreamed of a career on the stage. Mario Garcia is the CEO/Founder of García Media and a Senior Adviser on News Design/Adjunct Professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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“I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

JE ROME K . JE ROME , WR I TE R AND HUMOR I ST

JOURNALISM + DRAWING = COOL!

A data viz whiz since his crayon-coloring days ROBERT DORRELL: “EVEN AFTER YEARS OF DEADLINES, I STILL GET A CHARGE FROM BREAKING NEWS AND PRODUCING COMPLEX VISUAL DISPLAYS.”

I “[Visual journalism] has been a lifelong fascination,” writes Robert Dorrell on his website. “I was the kid in grade school who always included an original illustration or drawing when he turned in a written report. It seemed to help assure good grades.”

Design Journal • Fall 2015

love creating graphics that tell stories, and explain aspects of the human experience and our environment. I had been doing that as a professional for many years before it suddenly occurred to me: I had actually been doing it since I was in grade school. Back then, every time I wrote a report for school, I also included a drawing on the same topic, even though that wasn’t called for in the assignments. In the sixth grade, I once covered four big sheets of poster board with drawings of the plant and animal phyla. It took me a solid month, and I drained the ink from three sets of markers. In high school, I edited the weekly paper, but also drew editorial cartoons. Always the combination: stories and visuals. My training is in journalism, but I’ve always known how to draw. That combination has given me the chance to do

L O V E L E T T E R How can you not have a fondness for your first love? Fifty-six years later, I still recall how eagerly I anticipated the first penmanship worksheet in Miss Mix’s first-grade class. Tracing those dotted lines of the capital A, the letterform came alive with three simple strokes of my fat, new pencil. A bold, symmetrical, classic shape — providing a path to learning and understanding for all. “A” gets an “A+” in my book. — DAVID KORDALSKI, AME/VISUALS, THE (CLEVELAND) PLAIN DEALER

things like inspect the underground chamber at the base of the Washington Monument, where the footings for the elevator sit. I got to sit in the captain’s chair of a huge Boeing 777 and find out how the failure of a tiny fuse for a backup cockpit display screen could cause a trans-Pacific flight of such a plane to be canceled. I’ve had the opportunity to create visual journalism, while working with some especially talented journalists and artists, in a long string of newsrooms: Idaho, Colorado, Texas, Indiana, California, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., where I work now. Since I started as a professional in 1985, technology has changed the methods for making graphics, but the critical essences remain the same: use compelling visuals and layering of information to show readers something uncommon, and valuable. Today, I am part of an independent graphics production studio, a new company called the GraphFix Lab. We’re building a new website, but the work we’re doing now can be seen on our Facebook page of that name, and you can see more work samples at www.robertdgraphics.com. Graphics are important stuff. I urge those with interest to keep working on them. “Graphics are my forte,” writes Robert Dorrell on his website’s biography page. His professional repertoire includes graphics composition, cartography, thematic illustration, caricature, largescale news graphics projects, on-scene graphics reporting, graphics copy writing and interactive graphics production.

Passion Partners Creative partners muse on their synergistic process

JOSH CRUTCHMER AND ANDREA ZAGATA CRUTCHMER Design and Graphics Editor; Lead Sports Designer Both work at The Plain Dealer How did you two first meet? Andrea: We met in 2009 at the SND competition in Syracuse. I was a student and Josh offered to critique my work, because I was interested in sports. Josh: She promised to check in semi-regularly after judging. She upheld her part of that deal, and a professional relationship started. Professional relations blurred into a friendship, and at the 2012 judging, when I was coordinator and she was a facilitator, we started dating, and have been together since. How does passion for what you do play into your relationship with each other? Andrea: We are both sports fans so it’s easy to pick what’s on TV most days. It is nice to be in a relationship with someone who has the same weird hours, understands deadline pressure, and gets fired up about the same things. Describe how you work. Andrea: We do what I call ping-ponging; I’ll work on something, pass it to Josh, he’ll try something else and pass it back, and we’ll just keep working until we are both happy with how it is coming out. Josh is the first to tell me if he thinks something’s not working as well as it should, and my response is sometimes “Okay, well you try it, because I don’t know where to go from here” — and that is a nice thing to have. I think this works well both ways. Josh: We “clicked” from the start, but I think our stride started being more and more obvious in the 2014 Sochi Olympics and NCAA Basketball Tournament in Buffalo. By the time we got to Cleveland, we were interchangeable as organizers and designers. Andrea has formed her own set of wildly-high expectations, and I understand those as well as she understands mine.

Graphics by Robert Dorrell

Your creative partnership in three words: Andrea: Fun, challenging, supportive. Josh: Understanding each other. See other Passion Partners Q&A’s throughout this section. ➸ snd.org • Design Journal

“If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.” T H E PASSION ISSUE

Passion Partners

BE NJAMI N FRANK LI N, SCI E NTI ST, I NV E NTOR , WR I TE R

PANTONE PASSION SPLASH

BLOOD PASSION

WARM PASSION

PASSION ENFLAMED

LIPSTICK PASSION

PRESS-DEEP PASSION

INNOCENT PASSION

THE PASSION OF LOVERS

PEACOCK PASSION

UNEXPECTED PASSION

PASSION

SUBPASSION

PASSION FIRE

PASSION FLOWER

PASSION WINTER

PASSION KIDS

SECRET PASSION

PASSION PLAYER

HI ON LIFE

PASSION AT MIDNIGHT

SOMEONE OPEN A WINDOW

PASSION ATHLETE

Describe how you work. Katie: We’re constantly bouncing things off one another — from brainstorming to final details. We come from very different backgrounds, so we’re able to see things differently and are constantly pushing each other out of our comfort zones.

PASSION PURPLE

PASSION FOR PURPLE

Your creative partnership in three words: Katie: Just trust me. Tim: Look at this!

PURPLE PASSION

PURPLE PASSION II

Creative partners muse on their synergistic process

KATIE MYRICK AND TIM PARKS Digital designer; Deputy Presentation and Planning Editor Both work at The Omaha World-Herald News How did you two first meet? We met the same way all great couples do — through SND. We’re regulars at the annual Best of News Design competition in Syracuse, so my guess is we met in the Sheraton hotel bar. After a few years, we finally started actually getting to know one another. How does passion for what you do play into your relationship with each other? Katie: I can say definitively that my passion for design is what first sparked my interest in Tim. After seeing so many of his great pages, year after year, in Syracuse, I had to understand exactly how they were able to pull some of them off. So I asked. And we haven’t stopped talking about great design since. Tim: We were on FaceTime a lot while we were in the longdistance part of our relationship, and newspaper design was always part of our conversations — whether it was something we were working on ourselves or something we had seen from another paper. Now that we work together, I try to limit our workrelated conversations at home, but when ideas strike, I have to share them with Katie.

➸

See other Passion Partners Q&A’s throughout this section.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

L O V E L E T T E R I love the diverse, yet always recognizable shape, of the ampersand — once the 27th letter of the English alphabet. This yellow ampersand, from an antique store in Asheville, North Carolina, was the first of many hanging on my apartment wall. Although I don’t know its origin, it was the first to ask me the question, “& now what?” — JENNA KENDLE, DESIGNER, GANNETT’S DESIGN STUDIO IN PHOENIX

“PASSION REDS MAKE ME LOVE INTENSE” THE SEARCH FOR THAT P-WORD ON A COLOR PALETTE SITE LEADS TO EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN

BERRY PASSION

FRUIT OF PASSION

RANDY AUNTIE

PASSION FOR BEER

PASSION FRUIT

PASSION DIGITAL

BEACH PASSION

BLUE PASSION

SUBDUED PASSION

RED PASSION

PASSION REDS MAKE ME LOVE INTENSE

PINK PASSION

DARK PASSION

DARKER PASSION

BEYONCE PASSION

UNDERVALUED PASSION

DON JUAN

WILDLIFE PASSION

PINEAPPLE PASSION

INFATUATION

PASSIONATE ABOUT

WINE OF PASSION

LUST ON THE FIELD

HUNKAHUNK OF BURNING LOVE

GREEN PASSION

MY SWEET CHOCOLATE PASSION

What’s behind a color name? A marketer might say, “Everything.” Color monikers set a tone, evoke an emotion, tease out a memory, or conjure up great adventures. Search for “passion” on a color palette site,* and it’s obvious that when it comes to visualizing this thing we call passion, the possibilities are endless — there’s “red passion,” “pink passion,” and the everpopular “purple passion”; “dark passion,” “darker passion,” “deep passion” and “serious passion.” Whet your appetite with “passion fruit” — of every kind — “passion wine,” “pineapple passion.” There truly is a passion palette for everyone. — Julie M. Elman

*Adobe Color CC, in this case

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“Rest in reason; move in passion” T H E PASSION ISSUE

K AHLI L GI BRAN, ARTI ST, POE T AND WR I TE R

Every day, for Dardenne TARA McCARTY REMEMBERS A BELOVED PROFESSOR WHO LEFT THIS WORLD TOO SOON

is reputation met me far before his bright blue eyes and wild, scraggly hair ever did. You might say I chose the University of South Florida St. Petersburg Journalism & Media Studies program because of how highly he was regarded. And while I never did take a course taught by the great Dr. Robert Dardenne, I would say he was still one of my most profound teachers. He taught that journalism was a battle worth the fight, and that even though the industry is rough and may never be easy, we could all be tough soldiers. Ask anyone about him and they are likely to say one of three things: 1) his classes consisted of intelligent but crazed tangents with no real beginning or end, 2) he always sent his emails in ALL CAPS, signed “bd” or 3) he was quite the conversationalist. While attempting to stoke journalism’s fire in the minds of the young men and women (never boys or girls) he taught, he called them by their last names. He greeted me with a “McCarty!” every Monday when I plopped down in his office, demanding that he critique the college paper I proudly designed. I likened him to Dumbledore, the

Design Journal • Fall 2015

Dr. Robert Dardenne and Tara McCarty are shown, above. At right is McCarty’s tattoo. Depending on the day, the “d” could stand for a number of things — but, she says, “every day, it’s for Dardenne.”

great, immensely talented wizard from the Harry Potter series who could make the smallest person feel like they had worth. And, like Dumbledore, Dardenne suddenly disappeared from this world. In the months after his death, I found myself thinking about all the questions I never got to ask and in denial of his departure. I’m still 45 percent convinced he’s in France somewhere, drinking wine and watching the sunset.

Every time someone asks me what the “d” tattooed on my wrist is for, I try to spread the memory of a man who could shape the lives of future journalists. Somehow, in the year since I got the tattoo, I haven’t found the best way to do him justice. How do you put someone that influential into just a few words? If he saw the letter, I already know he’d ask, in his thick Louisianan accent, “Why would you get a silly thing like that? I’m dead!” Then, he’d probably shake his head and mutter about the youths of today — but inside he’d be touched. I’ve been asked why I chose to ink Times New Roman on my body. (The horror!) It’s old-school, reliable and well-used — and placed a little off-kilter, it perfectly matches the craziness that was Dardenne. I guess when you lay it down simply, some days the “d” stands for determination, or design, or dedication, or dreams … but every day it’s for Dardenne: The embodiment of journalism and a source of inspiration for how I got where I am. Tara McCarty is a designer at The Tampa Bay Times.

Your

♥ letter here.

L O V E L E T T E R ? We know you’ve got one. Every time you see it — that favorite letterform of yours — you melt a little inside. Uppercase, lowercase, straight-edged, curvy, handwritten, computer-generated — anything goes when it comes to letters that strike the heart. Show us and tell us about your love letter so we can run it in a future issue of Design Journal. A visual and up to 50 words will do the trick. Send it to Julie M. Elman, elman@ohio.edu. Letter rip!

Photo (left) courtesy of Tara McCarty; photo (above) by Julie M. Elman

snd.org • Design Journal

snd foundation

A NOTE FROM THE SNDF PRESIDENT

Croonin’ for the kids Tracy Collins, Director Gannett’s Design Studio in Phoenix, is passionate about design — and about mentoring up-and-coming visual communicators. As president of The Society for News Design Foundation, he is always drumming up innovative ways to raise the level of funding to support education and research in visual journalism.

Aviva Loeb, The University of Vermont, here was a beautiful moment Aviva Loeb, The University of and SNDF grant recipient: at SND’s annual workshop in Vermont and SNDF grant recipient: April in Washington, D.C., when “My school doesn’t offer any sort of jour“My school doesn’t offer any sort of graphics pioneers Nigel Holmes and nalism program, let alone a journalism journalism program, let alone a jourJohn Grimwade stood on a stage graphics track. SND has made it possible nalism graphics track. SND has made for me to stay competitive and learn from at a local pub and sang karaoke, a it possible for me to stay competitive the absolute best in the industry. Being gin-soaked variation on The Beatles’ and learn from the absolute best in selected to attend the annual workshop great “Yesterday.” the industry. Being selected to attend not only restored my confidence in my own That performance tells a great story the annual workshop not only restored abilities, but it connected me with the peoabout the SND Foundation. Both my confidence in my own abilities, but ple and resources I needed to jumpstart dreaded the night, having dodged it connected me with the people and my career in visual journalism. This is my resources I needed to jumpstart my karaoke even while easily taking on passion, and SND has helped me make my career in visual journalism. This is my much greater professional challenges in dreams a reality.” passion, and SND has helped me make their storied careers. my dreams a reality.” But they did it for the kids. The SND Foundation was created in Fast-forward two decades, and times 1992, with a primary goal to fund the are far different. The future is less clear, futures of aspiring visual journalists but it’s obvious there IS a future, across through travel grants and scholarships, multiple platforms. Visual storytelling bringing hundreds to SND workshops. and data visualization are critical to that The reason many people attend these magical notion of audience engagement. workshops is for exposure: Exposure to The need to help develop the next new ideas; exposure to new techniques; generation is even greater, because the exposure to the best and brightest of glamor of design in the 1990s has been visual storytelling. It can ignite careers. replaced by this uncertainty. That was never more apparent than And so you have some of the greatest in the 1990s. Those were halcyon days names in the history of visual journalism for design, and SND’s growth reflected — Nigel Holmes, John Grimwade, it. The leaders of SND channeled that Mario Garcia — doing things they never growth into the future with SNDF, using thought they would do to raise money it to bring students to workshops who for these young visual storytellers. Great were just starting their careers, or those fun, but with very serious intent. still trying to decide if visual journalism That kind of investment in the future was the right path for them. is what the SND Foundation is about. From that notion of career seed money, the SND Foundation has grown — Tracy Collins many professionals.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

{

What happens in D.C., doesn’t stay in D.C., apparently. Here are the lyrics to the song sung by two of our fearless visual leaders. YESTERDAY (with a nod to Lennon & McCartney) by Nigel Holmes and John Grimwade yesterday, computers seemed so far away we’ve forgotten how to draw today oh we remember yesterday dinosaurs, we’re the British infographic bores, moaning on about a long-lost cause, that’s why they call us dinosaurs. why art had to go, we don’t know, we couldn’t say now it’s data-viz, how we long for yesterday. nowadays, computers everywhere — we’re crazed lost inside a creepy data maze oh yes we know it’s nowadays why art had to go, we don’t know, we couldn’t say now it’s data-viz, how we long for yesterday. tomorrow’s news, we’re not saying it’s completely blues can news designers somehow give us clues to how we’ll read tomorrow’s news? We believe in SND.

Dennis Brack, president of Rappahannock Media LLC and SNDF grant recipient: “How has SND influenced my career? The answer is simple: in a profoundly meaningful and positive way. “As an aspiring young designer, beginning in high school, the annual Best of Newspaper Design book provided a wealth of inspiration, especially in a pre-Internet world where inspiration was not just a click away. And as a professional, the annual SND workshops have been invaluable as a way to learn, connect with new talented designers and re-connect with old friends (who also happen to be quite talented designers). “But SND’s biggest impact on me came in the form of a student travel grant in 1995. As the College Designer of the Year, I was able to attend the workshop in Barcelona, along with about 10 other students. This experience still rates as a seminal moment. Exposure to another design culture was eye opening, especially during that era, when our Spanish colleagues were doing so much to shape news presentation. And having the workshop’s closing banquet in the city’s bull ring definitely goes on the once-inlifetime list.”

Adam Baumgartner, a graduate of Ball State University and designer at Vox Media, and an SNDF grant recipient: “Being awarded an SND travel grant allowed me to visit Europe for the first time while attending the conference in Frankfurt. I was able to learn about the world around me, while learning about the concerns that dictate media organizations’ actions in countries other than my own. The grant helped me understand what it means to communicate and collaborate with people all over the world, instead of within the borders of my country.” Instagram photo courtesy of Steve Dorsey

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#SNDSF • APRIL 7–9, 2016

“A city is not gauged by its length and width, but by the broadness of its vision and the height of its dreams. … San Francisco is such a city.” — Herb Caen, San Francisco Chronicle

an Francisco has long been a city with lofty dreams and the vision to achieve them — from the first thoughts

of rebuilding a city shattered by a devastating quake, to erecting a golden bridge at the edge of the Pacific, to the unexpected millions connected by 140 characters or less. The city has always evolved, fueled by the creative spirit of those who have come here. It seems the perfect place for SND’s next workshop. In San Francisco, the workshop will be about looking ahead, with an eye on our craft and the inspiration designers need to navigate an increasingly complex media landscape. We’re dubbing this workshop — the 38th in the Society’s history — SNDSF: Evolving Our Craft. Come, be part of our evolution. — FRANK MINA Learn more at www.snd.org/training/

BY J E FF V I ER V IA CREATIV E COM M ON S 56 P HOTO Design Journal • Fall 2015

snd.org â&#x20AC;˘ Design Journal

Moderno FB Font Bureau recommends using Moderno for newspapers, magazines, and corporate and custom purposes. I was drawn to using this typeface (mainly for the headlines in this issue) because of its grace and sense of movement. Passion — always on the move, with style. — Julie M. Elman, SND Publications Director

Design Journal • Fall 2015

We are grateful to Font Bureau for its generous gift of gorgeous type choices for this issue of Design Journal. Thank you! About Moderno FB, from www.fontbureau.com:

“In 1995, David Berlow cut FB Moderno for Esquire Gentleman and Reforma from a TrueType pole of Giza. In 1996 he cut new styles with Richard Lipton for El Norte. In 1997 Roger Black ordered new weights for Tages Anzeiger. Redesign of the Baltimore Sun, with FB Ionic as text, required further growth. The whole series was then revised for Louise Vincent, Montreal Gazette, with further styles added in 2005 for La Stampa.” Other typefaces used in this issue: Scotch and Benton Sans

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LIFECHANGING! In 2006, SND President Lee Steele attended his first SND Workshop in Houston. His encounter with Roger Black changed the course of his professional life. (Sketch by Lee Steele, created on the spot at the 2015 SND Workshop in D.C.)

Design Journal â&#x20AC;˘ Fall 2015

A (small) sampling of where we’ve been:

Spring 1994

Summer 1997

Winter 1998

Spring 2001

Spring 2002

Fall 2002

Summer 2003

Fall 2003

Summer 2004

Summer 2006

Winter 2007

Fall 2007

Spring 2008

Summer 2008

Summer 2011

and a (little) hint of what’s to come:

Spring 2016!

T is for Transition. Honestly, we really don’t know what the cover will be for this next issue of Design Journal — and we’re OK with that. What we do know is this: The Big D is back. From one year to the next, Design Journal has evolved. What (and who) hasn’t? For the next issue, we’re going to focus on transition, in all its forms. And we’d like to hear your stories about change and process and passage — all that good stuff — for possible inclusion in our next issue. Got an idea, or two? Send them to Julie M. Elman at elman@ohio.edu. Interested in being a sponsor for Design Journal? Contact Stephen Komives at skomives@snd.org snd.org • Design Journal

VISUALIZE.

Design Journal • Fall 2015

FORM.

ENGAGE. AT T H E K H A L E E J TIMES, THE PURPOSE OF V I S U A L I Z AT I O N AND GRAPHICS I S I N S I G H T, N O T JUST IMAGES. LET US SHOW YOU, WITH A SAMPLE OF OUR RECENT WORK. snd.org • Design Journal

Society of News Design 424 E. Central Blvd., Suite 406 Orlando, FL 32801 U.S.A. ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED