TAKEAWAY: Feeling nostalgic about printed newspapers? Tired of reading those premature obituaries for what we know as the daily printed newspaper? Now here is something you may get to keep the light burning—-and your nose happy.
Heaven’s scent
It was a day for thinking printed newspapers yesterday, for sure. Then, presto, a candle with the smell of newsprint!
It all began when I posted yesterday’s blog, reviewing our work at Garcia Media with printed newspapers. I even created an opening blog visual with front pages from our recent projects for South China Morning Post, El Tiempo, WirtschaftBlatt, AD and Goteborgs Posten.
Many of you sent me email messages expressing your approval that I was flying the “printed newspaper” flag, and reminding me that, indeed, print is eternal. I even put the image of the front pages on my Facebook page and got many “Likes” and comments.
Then came the email from my mentor, Howard Kleinberg, former editor of The Miami News, the afternoon newspaper where I cut my teetn, mostly at the feet of Kleinberg, the then sports editor,
Kleinberg was one of my inspirations to follow a career in newspaper design. Not that Kleinberg was what you would call a newspaper designer, not by today’s standards, but, alas, he was a master of “newspaper page make up”. He was, and continues to be,a visual thinker who would sit there with an approaching deadline and try to figure out how to best let the look of the page convey the meaning of the stories on it.
Howard is now retired, still living in the Miami he loves, and indulging his passion for storytelling. This is what Howard wrote me:
I remain terribly disturbed about newspapers; certainly the economics of them but also the design—the readability.
Clashing tombstone headlines, color photos abutting color advertisements, typographical widows, declarative headlines rather than informative, the melding of objective and subjective in news columns, and on and on.
I’m chagrined about the newest style of the New York Times Sunday Magazine and nervous about the paper’s announced redesign for the Week in Review, premiering next Sunday. And, as for celebrity news, I am underwhelmed by the attention paid them.
Nostalgia fighter
Just around lunch time here in Oslo, where I spend most of my time this week creating the concept for Upstream’s iPad app, a note from Andreas Emblem, from the management team of the Dagens Naeringsliv, the financial daily and sister publication to Upstream, along with an image of the Times of New York candle you see here:
“Something to combat nostalgia as you work on your next ipad project…?,“ Andreas wrote to me.
The Times of New York candle was created by the now deceased designer-artist Tobias Wong. The scent is a combination of guaiacwood, cedar, musk, spice, with “a powdery note and velvet nuance,“ meant to mimic the aroma of black ink on newsprint.
You can get the Times of New York candle here, for $65 plus shipping.
So, no need to keep all those yellowed newsprint pages in the attic or basement. Simply burn the candle and pretend you are in the middle of the giant press room of a typical newspaper, that smell of newsprint seducing you as the pages you produced snake up and down the cylinders, with those printing press operators in blue overalls doing quick reviews of color quality.
Now that we have the candle to bring us the aroma of newsprint all we need is the audio: the roaring sounds of the press going full speed.
Nostalgia never smelled better.
I am preparing my presentations as I participate, for the second consecutive year, in a well organized and interesting seminar in Istanbul.
The +1T Newspaper Design Days is sponsored by Turkey’s daily newspaper, Zaman. This will be the sixth edition of the +1T Newspaper Days program.
According to Fevzi Yazici, design director of Zaman, this program is especially designed for design students, to attract them to the world of visual journalism. However, professional journalists and designers also participate in the event.
“Our +1T Newspaper Days program is based on the idea that art (design) students and journalim students have to come together to get best newspaper design. So Zaman’s design staff organized this event to give future newspaper students an opportunity to accomplish this mission.“
This year program includes presentations by well known Turkish journalists. In addition: photographers Reza, George Georgiou, Vanessa Winship; Infographics artist ,Jeff Goertzen, of the Denver Post.
The seminar runs for 8 days June 21-
The seminar takes place at the Zaman’s hearquarters in Istanbul.
The title of my presentations are:
For print: Survival in the times of the iPad and Beyond
iPad :Creating that news app that is uniquely special
For more information:
http://www.arti1t.com/
