News Design School

Ah, letterpress. Paper. Ink.

Bob — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:08:30 +0000

I love old printing. I guess because I, in fact, am now old. Long gone are my days in a composing room, reading lead type upside down and backwards. Sigh.

Here is a brief vid about letterpress printing in one of the few shops in the UK still pressing ink on paper.

Upside Down, Left To Right: A Letterpress Film from Danny Cooke on Vimeo.

No related posts.

Some good deals on design books from MoMA

Bob — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 23:10:09 +0000

The Museum of Modern Art digs into print material this week with two events for lovers of letters. The one of interest to those interested in newspaper design: MoMA stores are currently offering 50 percent discounts on more than 1,300 book titles, including Type Directors Club’s Typography 29 and Architectures of Herzog & de Meuron: Portraits, by Thomas Ruff, through Jan. 24 (after the 24th, the discount will increase to 75 percent until Feb. 13).

Check out the MoMA web site: http://www.moma.org

Does information have to be supported by ads?

Bob — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 23:06:23 +0000

From an economic standpoint, most information is simply a vehicle for advertising. We see the advertising as a distraction. But so far as the media company’s bottom line goes, the advertising is the point. Without the advertising, the information wouldn’t exist. So the history of information, in the U.S. at least, is the history of platforms that could support advertising. — Ezra Kline, Wonkblog, WaPo

Maybe we need to look at all information being supported by attached persuasive messages, advertising or some other meme. It’s always been this way, even way back when political parties supported newspapers as a way of getting their information out. In some ways that was more honest.

We are heading down a path of no return with information. It used to be that we were considered readers, then listeners, then viewers, then consumers. We more or less willingly accepted the ads surrounding our information as a way to get that information for “free.” In reality, it more or less was free.

But now we’re the ones being “consumed,” with our online tracks being followed by marketing scouts who record our every move for companies interested in our attention. We are tracked on the web, our “customer loyalty” cards are really just ways to trade a few pennies for your marketing information, and customer “surveys” do the same thing, in hopes of winning a prize.

We are talking about a “Minority Report”-like face recognition world where one is bombarded with advertising messages aimed directly at one person. Already we are seeing articles about how to “beat” facial recognition software. It will be a brave new world.

I hope we don’t look back at the good ol’ days when our information was free and so were we.

Attention to details with type pays off

Bob — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 14:54:10 +0000

I love type. When I was younger and wanted to be an artist when I grew up, I used to paint letterforms. That’s probably why I am not an artist.

But I still appreciate good typography, and I groan when I see bad typography. Here’s an example of the latter:

The Ts in “matters” are touching, creating the symbol for pi, instead of the shapes we are familiar with. Individual letters should not touch. This is all too common. At least negative linespacing is used, a must with all-CAPS.

Take the time to adjust your display type at least: the headlines, column logos, flags, etc. In InDesign and/or Quark, it is not all that hard and it should take only 60 seconds or so.

Attention to details like this will keep readers and keep readers happy.

If you would like a video critique of your pages, please let me know. Use the Contact page to shoot mean e-mail.

SEO, Google experiment

Bob — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 03:44:17 +0000

I got busy with clients last spring and was having trouble getting the time to make my best effort at posting here. Even though I wasn’t posting, I kept checking Google Analytics and the number of followers I had on Twitter.

Things seemed to be moving up, so I decided to do an experiment and wait a bit before posting again. Then things really got weird.

When I first created this particular iteration of this site a couple of years ago, I turned up on page 11 or 12 for my main keyword of “newspaper design.” I got to work, writing posts and creating content that would help my position in Google search.

Last year sometime, I celebrated because I had made the front page, eventually seeming to hover around No. 8 (of 10). Nothing that I did from that point on seemed to make any difference. I seemed to be stuck at No. 8.

Then I hit my busy season and I basically just stopped posting. I posted twice in April, once in May and once in June, but nothing since. I did tweet on occasion, mostly design-oriented quotes I got off the web.

Now I am getting ready to attend to the site again, and just for chuckles, I checked my position on Google. To my surprise, the main site was listed on the first results page at No. 3 and the blog at No. 6 for “newspaper design.” For “newspaper layout and design,” the main site was No. 3 again, and a post was No. 6. In fact, I have two front page positions for most of my important key words. (Does Google now use location as a factor? Could that be the reason? I have it set at “any region” in Advanced Search.) My page rank went to four from three.

At the same time my page views nearly doubled, according to Google Analytics (I know, I know: I never have gotten a lot of site visits anyway) and my Twitter feed gained followers. Who knows what is different now….

So I am not going to over-analyze this. I think (I hope!) I got the message: less is more. I can do that.

If you need some help with your publication design, contact (contactnewsdesignschoolcom) me for more information.