Visual Voice

It was a busy weekend for redesigns among U.S. newspapers. The Hartford Courant's new look debuted Sunday, with a dramatically different nameplate and a lead story on the death of one of Connecticut's most well-known residents, Paul Newman.

The Chicago Tribune and The Oklahoman both launched this morning.

I talked with key staffers at each site over the last few days about the premieres, the process, the way they've communicated the changes to their readers and the elements of the designs that they find most exciting.

The previews I've seen of the Tribune and the way you've given readers a preview of what's to come are impressive. The video seems to bring readers into the conversation. What are you most excited about, personally?

Jonathon Berlin: The most exciting thing about the changes we'll start on Monday is that it will really be a completely different experience.

All of the best things we do -- the analysis, the voices, the way we talk to our readers -- are going to be amplified and turned up. I think what we've managed to do is take the way that you're used to reading a big-city broadsheet daily and just sort of turn it on its ear and make it into a daily magazine about Chicago.

Jim Denk creates beautiful, full-page graphics and illustrations. He's known for it, good at it, done it for years.

But these days, he also takes photos, designs and sells ads ... Oh, and he rubber bands newspaper bundles in his garage, and delivers them to the post office each Wednesday.

He's the managing editor at The Matthews Record, the 11,000 weekly circulation paper that he and his wife Janet bought a few years ago. Janet is the editor and publisher.

Mario Garcia's perspective. It's something that's always fascinated me. I look forward to the fleeting times when I get to talk with him here at Poynter. It is always a privilege.

Traveling the world more often then not, Mario is in and out of newsrooms and in conversations with some of the most influential people in journalism. He's always way ahead of the curve with what's possible for the delivery of information. But even without that -- the stories he tells, the way he observes people and the world and his particular take on life is something well worth a listen.

Guess what? Now I can get a glimpse of what he's seeing and experiencing every day. You can, too, with TheMarioBlog, his new-found passion. Paired with another online invention, TheMarioClassroom, you can tap into his ideas about the crafts of journalism.

Here's part two of our discussion with five young journalists who sat on a panel at the Society for News Design workshop in Las Vegas this month. They had so many interesting things to say, I couldn't fit it all into one column. I guarantee that, if you have the good fortune to run into one of them, they'll have a great deal more to tell.

So, here's another good take on what they presented, and it's chock-full of good links and resources to check out. I wanted to know where they looked for inspiration and ideas, what advice they would give a young journalism student and the best advice they'd been given. Here's what they said.

I talked with a number of extremely bright young journalists at the Society for News Design workshop in Las Vegas this week.

The group met for a panel discussion to share their views, experiences and hopes for what's ahead in this industry.

Here is a bit of their discussion.

In response to a question about what journalism might be like in the next 10 or 20 years, panelists had this to say: