The impact of digital media on books
‘the entire purpose of a book cover has changed, in accordance with the rise of digital publishing. Now, as consumers no longer have to rely on pacing the aisles of a physical bookstore and having a cover catch their eyes from a few shelves over, the artistic considerations of thumbnail-sized covers have to evolve as well.’
I think it would be ideal to just touch on this idea of digital book covers, as the way in which designers work in creating an effective cover has changed due to the concept of a small thumbnail format.
Coexisting in a digital world
‘He was present for Mark Porter’s historic redesign of the paper in 2005, when it slimmed down to a full-color “Berliner” format (between tabloid and broadsheet), and proved that print media could live comfortably in a digital world (at least for the moment – The Guardian now mostly lives online). Turley art-directed the paper’s daily G2 section, and stayed for almost 10 years.’
‘It’s like doing ten magazines covers a day! There’s not much of a roadmap. The idea is to take what MTV can be – that history of visual culture, of taking risks – and apply it in a digital news sense.’
‘Whatever the fate of cable TV, MTV News already commands huge attention on social media. At last count, it had 3.3 million followers on Twitter and almost 1.5 million likes on Facebook. It mostly serves entertainment news, but Turley hopes to expand the editorial reach.’
The key parts in this article is the idea that there is hope for printed matter to coexist with digital media; Richard Turley helped Mark Porter's redesign of the Guardian. However, from then the Guardian mostly exists online, but has had a successful strategy in staying alive as a publication. The article also discussed the rapidity and growing hunger for social media news and entertainment.
The multi skilled nature of today's editorial design
‘When it comes to printed graphics, there are obvious (and less obvious) constraints on the amount of space we can devote to any single graphic. The obvious constraint is the physical size of the newspaper itself.’
‘On the Web, the temptation exists to publish more data simply because we have it. While we think readers will often find it interesting to explore a large set of data, we try to make it easily navigable.’
‘Interactive graphics are a different story. Awhile back, our executive editor, Bill Keller, sort of fired a gun to initiate a newsroom-wide integration between the print and Web newsrooms, and we took it as an opportunity to reconfigure ourselves so we could generate the same level of work on the Web that we produce, or aspired to produce, in the printed paper.’
‘Getting started, it didn't hurt that about half of the department had Web experience. Many of us had come from Web sites only to join a department that was focused on printed work. But that was about to change.’
‘Developing deep interactive features often means joining hands with a couple of other departments whose staff members have extensive specialized skills. One new group in the newsroom, the interactive news technology department, is a group of talented software developers who sit nearby and focus their efforts on projects that require significant programming expertise.’
This blog/article piece looks into the shift of how news staff work together in the digital age and the growing demand for specialised skills in web design and interactive media. Steve Duenes touches on how the role for a designer today is to make large data sets easily navigable, as the consumer behaviour has changed to want large amounts of info in short summaries.
The revival of zines
‘In a world where we have so much available to us at our fingertips, literally by swiping a screen, it is surprising that people still take the time to produce something by hand. Is the zine culture becoming more popular?’
“Zines have been going through a strong revival over the past five years...and counting! They fly low on the cultural radar, allowing for zine spaces to be truly cultivated by local communities and interested folks. I personally hope that at the heart of the zine revival is a growing kernel of resistance to surveillance, as evidenced by this newfound devotion to print, and (hopefully) all things analog.”
‘In theory, the maturation of the internet should have killed off the desire for zines entirely. The web is a Gutenberg press on steroids, predicated on free software platforms created by companies that invest considerable sums to lure people to their sites’
‘Publishing ideas outside the mainstream can make an author incredibly vulnerable; the web is polluted with a culture of toxicity that invites attacks. Zines, in Mujukian’s vision, “are essentially about reclamation. You get to make your own media and define your own narrative in the way you want to and can.”
‘Devin N. Morris, who edits and publishes 3 Dot Zine, told me that he sees self-publishing as a political and radical act. He’s a young queer artist from Baltimore, and the zines he creates reflect that experience and create a historical narrative that otherwise would be ignored.’
‘zines can feel so much more intimate than a Facebook post. The deliberation and care that goes into making them is important. The internet is especially adept at compressing humanity and making it easy to forget there are people behind tweets, posts and memes.’
‘People have more news and entertainment choices than ever before and myriad ways to consume them. Advertisers have to embrace an integrated content marketing approach. What’s funny is that print, once the old-fashioned content marketing staple, can now actually feel unique—a way to break through the digital advertising clutter.’
‘Global spending on paid media is estimated to hit $542.55 billion by year-end, according to eMarketer, and digital marketing is soaring. This year, U.S. marketers spent more on digital advertising than on TV for the first time. Meanwhile, global print advertising is expected to decline 8.7 percent to $52.6 billion, according to estimates by Group M.’
‘Standing out amongst the ever-growing volume of digital content can be challenging. Advertisers use print as a way to make a lasting impression with an audience. Last year, The Content Marketing Institute (CMI) predicted a surge in print magazines from brands, many of which view print as a less competitive medium.’
I found in my research that this revival of zines is a good counteract for me to use in my essay to combat the idea that print is dead; all of these articles emphasise the uniqueness of printed matter and how it offers a tangible product to cut through the chaos of the internet.
Printed/digital hybrids?
Jefferson Hack - Cofounder of Dazed and Confused magazine; now editorial director of the Dazed group
Released the first ever magazine with LED screen technology on it’s cover; featuring Rhianna
‘Bring technology to print’ and ‘End the debate of print vs digital’
‘Print sales across the industry are under pressure, and publishers are looking more online’
The LED magazine was a very high end piece of hardware, not really suitable for mass consumption - more of a design object
Opens a debate for whether there could be a market for digital hybrids; the PR it received showed an appetite for the product; now it is more down to R&D and whether magazines like these could be mass produced
Dazed has always had the reputation of being cutting edge; a good benefit in staying relevant in the digital age; it’s target audience has always been those against the norm.
‘We’re here to stick a thorn in the establishment to prove that things can be done differently’
Is print dead?
Print is Dead Long Live Print (2015)
‘The print magazine as we once knew it is dead or dying’ pg7
‘Digital media provides information faster and more cheaply’ pg7
‘Digital attacks traditional magazines on two fronts : it erodes their readership and tempts away their advertisers’
The internet can help independent magazines actually find readers, and it is more accessible to actually put together a magazine due to improved technology.
In a new age where ads are everywhere, independent magazines are fresh in their approach to advertising, as they have minimal, carefully curated or no ads at all.
Negative - independent magazines are economically difficult, Rob Orchard of Delayed Gratification says ‘the sums just don’t add up’
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