News Design School » Technology

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.

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Alternate story formats aid newspaper layouts

Bob — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 17:56:56 +0000

I am a real believer in presenting information in a variety of ways. Good newspaper design almost requires you to do this.

Whether you use a map, an information graphic, photo, photo/story, a story or whatever, you need to be sure you are using the best tool for the story-telling job at hand.

I am also a big fan of alternate story formats or ASFs. This photo or visual based presentation of a story was very popular some years ago, but it seems that some papers have forgotten about using it.

Here is an example and how it was done in a brief video.

WordPress plugin: NYTimes flyout

Bob — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 19:32:38 +0000

I have always thought the flyout tease to a related story was a great idea by the New York Times. You can see it in action here at the NYT. Or you can simply check it out on this page.

You can get the same thing for your WordPress blog with the jquery plugin (perhaps unfortunately and oddly named) “upPrev: NYTimes Style ‘Next Post’ Animated Button.” You can check it out at this site.

It can either fly out, as does the NYT version, or it can fade in. You can set at what percentage of the page scroll the plugin goes into action. It works well with the Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (found here). (See it in action, below.) Best of all, they are free. They both should help the stickiness of your site, an important factor in blog success.

Flyout example

This is your brain on…computers

Bob — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 13:50:30 +0000

Here’s another in the ever-growing list of studies that show all our time connected to gadgets costs us more than the time. It also costs us brain power.

The New York Times is reporting about a study that found when rats experience something new, their brains don’t really begin to process that information until they experience some down time. The rats seemingly couldn’t even submit those items to long-term memory for later use.

Creativity needs a relaxed mind, one free to make connections between unrelated ideas. The next time your newspaper designs or page layouts seem to lack that pop, do not check your e-mail, play an iPhone game or surf the web. Take a walk outside, meditate or just sit and watch the world go by.

You — and your designs — will be better for it.

Twitter? Facebook? Don’t forget Listserv

Bob — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 15:55:43 +0000

In today’s world of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, it’s easy to forget one of the first “social media,” the e-mail list. Listserv, which technically began on Bitnet back in the day, is still around and thousands of lists use the software to connect people of like minds.

It’s nice to be among the in-crowd of a professional group, for instance, and not be limited to 140 characters or have to post in public to people who may or may not know what you are talking about. Also, you’d feel more free to speak your mind, knowing you are among friends.

You can find out if a list in your interest area exists (there are 36 that have to do with journalism, for instance) at the L-soft site. Kind of fun to go low tech once in awhile…. Here’s a Slate article that talks about Listservs.

If you don’t find what you like, why not start a list yourself?