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Don't Look now, but that redesign you invested in some time ago may be
Remember
that great design you bought a few years ago? Yes, “bought.” You paid for it either in consultant fees or staff sweat—both, if you did it right.
Well, don’t look now, but your investment may be swirling down a hole.
Even the best design can go south if it’s not nurtured. And, yes, there have been some redesigns I’ve worked on that I now find disappointing. Somewhere after the launch, all the attention and effort died—and so did those designs. Occasionally, it’s difficult to tell what may have happened. But some redesigns may suffer from the outset. Here’s why:
The mandated redesign. The newsroom rejects the project because editorial managers and staff believe the present redesign works fine or because they don’t want the help of an outsider. They see bringing in a consultant as a slap in the face. Some just can’t get over their hurt pride and eventually begin to chip away at the design. Sometimes, the mandate comes from corporate honchos. If the publisher doesn’t buy in, that design is going to be troubled from its inception.
Poor leadership. A good design requires the attention and protection of leadership throughout your newspaper. Yes, even including advertising, production and circulation supervisors. But especially in the newsroom, your managers must be committed to quality design in every issue. Newsroom managers who think of design as “making the paper pretty” or “jazzing it up” (a phrase I detest!) are more likely to take freedoms with the design. They’ll eventually find a reason to ignore even the most important rules. Often, they’re the ones who have never cracked open the design style guide. They want to break the rules (or allow their staffers to) without even knowing what the rules are. That’s not leadership—it’s deceit. If no one else, they’re lying to themselves.
No style guide (or one that’s not clear). A written style guide is the document that embodies the principles, techniques and approach of your design. It clearly spells out what is acceptable and what is not. Without a proper style guide, you don’t really have a design. You just have dissimilar and conflicting design approaches.
A style guide that has grown moldy. Over the years, some design
elements will be tweaked and updated to reflect new ideas and new
capabilities. Your style guide should be updated to reflect those
changes.
A change in staffing. As new desk people enter your newsroom, they understand little of the thinking and work that went into the initial redesign. They don’t possess the same sense of dedication to your design that long-time staffers may have. They often will see your design (no matter how contemporary) as dated. And some will want to make changes, even if that means violating some of the tenets in the design style guide. It’s important that these folks be given training and background on why and how your newspaper’s design works for your readers.
A change in leadership. Often a new publisher, editor or managing editor will want to change the design. This is not so much a change for the sake of improvement as it is a change for the sake of change. That new person wants to make a mark on the newspaper and there is no easier way (that’s right: no...easier...way) to quickly make a mark on a newspaper than to mess with the paper’s design. Your design is like the clothing you wear every day and a new person will do his or her best to clean out your closet and trade in your suits for slacks. Thank goodness leisure suits are still dead.
A change in hardware. A new system often causes headaches for your systems staff that can result in migraines for your designers. When we switch systems, we’re often presented with the temptation to cut a corner here, drop a rule there, change a font here, squeeze a head there. Give in to that temptation and your design begins to erode. The objective is not to rework the design to make it fit a format or a system code—but to fit the format or code to the design. And if that can’t happen then you’ve got the wrong system.
A change in software. new software often present new capabilities. In the 1980s, it became possible for us to run stories over faded, multi-colored screens. But that’s not a capability—it’s really a liability. Inexperienced designers don’t understand that just because they can do something with a design it doesn’t mean they should do it. They see the possibilities and want to make them realities while giving little thought to whether their choices are tasteful or not. Often the result can be bizarre. A key to good use of software is knowing which capabilities not to use.
None of these problems is insurmountable. Some will require strong
leadership to fix. Some will require training. Some will require hand
holding and some will require a firmer touch.
It’s your choice: You can watch over your design...or you can watch it swirl down the drain.
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