You want a better looking newspaper, but you are not sure whether to hire an outside consultant or whether you should do it yourself. Aren’t consultants expensive? Aren’t redesigns hard to pull off on your own?
Well, no and maybe.
Here are four reasons why I think you should hire someone to help you with your redesign project.
1. TIME. Let’s just say it straight: you don’t have the time to do it justice. A good redesign is a time-consuming process. You are too busy chronicling the quotidian to do everything necessary for a good redesign.
A redesign project takes months; a good redesign project takes many months. You don’t want to change the product that is so familiar to readers without good reason. It creates stress and readers don’t like it. A good consultant focuses everyone on staff and has the time to do it right.
2. SKILL SET. A design consultant has the skills to do a good job not only on the looks of the final product, but on the management and business issues that surround such projects. You may know a lot about type and color, but dealing with the people takes a special skill. In my experience, I have spent more time solving management issues than I have directly dealing with design issues. The design changes are the easy part. And let’s be honest, some of the problems any redesign project has to overcome are not design problems. So you need…
3. FRESH EYES. Sometimes we get so close to a project that we can’t see the potential problem areas. An outside consultant gives you a dispassionate look at your current design and what needs to be done to make it better. The consultant probably has experience in how to do the research you need both before and after the redesign.
Not only that, but a consultant will be unafraid to ask the questions that need to be asked and you know might be difficult to ask. Every publication gets into a rut after a while. Things are done “because they’ve always been done that way,” even when no one can remember the reason why.
4. MONEY: Hey, we began with Time, why not end with Money? The only way you are going to get the job done is if (a) you are released from your normal duties a bit or (b) you are paid overtime. Either way it is going to cost the publisher a lot of coin and you are going to end up burnt out.
When considering whether to use an outside consultant, don’t consider the fees as an extra cost, consider them a long-term investment in the newspaper. Given that there will be a new design, staff training, a design stylebook, templates and front-end computer training that will last for years, it should be easy to conceptualize as a long-term project with positive short term results. This is a good thing.
Finally, you don’t have to pay a big-bucks consultant to come in and do the whole thing for you. You may wish to simply hire someone to look over your shoulder or to do the research or to help you design templates. Plus, with programs such as Crossloop, you needn’t ever worry about travel expenses.
If you want some help with your redesign, shoot me an e-mail. I’d be happy to help you.
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