The Society for News Design turned 25 last year. Organized by a group of journalists who believed that newspapers could be improved by good design, it’s grown to an international membership of about 2,700. Dave Gray has been part of the group from founding member to Executive Director. He’ll retire in a few months.
This is an edited transcript of a conversation I had with him.
Poynter: Back in 1978, what would you say about the reason for SND?
Gray: In those days, newsrooms didn’t concentrate much on design. There was very little visual planning -– and the papers showed it …
There were a whole bunch of us facing the same problems, when we thought we were all alone. Most of us … were either managers or people who were going to be … We were basically all talking about … how terrible newsrooms were, how badly organized they were … and how design can bring a sense of order to all of that.
Poynter: You were then at The Providence Journal, right?
Gray: Yeah. After I graduated from the (Rhode Island) School of Design (RISD) … I worked in the promotion department … Then I was asked to come down to the newsroom to run the photo department.
The only job description was “Nine to five, Monday through Friday.” I took that as a sign to just go ahead and fill whatever vacuums existed in the newsroom. And there were a tremendous number of vacuums of things that people weren’t doing.
Poynter: Organizational things that they didn’t even know that they needed?
Gray: Things that they didn’t know that they needed is right.
There were newsroom conversations like “No … you can’t pre-plan the news!” and “What do you mean, layout the sports cover ahead of time?” Most of these ideas were just totally foreign to the way things were done … And newspapers looked bad as a result.
Poynter: You had the good fortune to work near RISD. That must have helped you build a good staff.
Gray: Oh, yeah … The graphics department went from about 17 people to, by the time I left, it was up to about 54.
At the Journal, we used to have a couple of summer visual interns from RISD … The way they were trained — they might actually spend an entire semester on one project.
They were skilled. But I realized that what I needed to tell them was, “… Your rush — your adrenaline — is going to come from seeing your work in the paper the next day, not the fact that you spent months on it until it’s perfect.”
Some of them grasped that, and loved it, and stayed in journalism. Those that didn’t get it moved on to something else. Which is fine. I think it’s a key thing for a lot of visual people — to love the rush of doing it, working with the news.
Now, if we have a news crisis of some kind — whether it’s the space shuttle blowing up, or Sept. 11 — at most newspapers now, the designers have become a critical part of the process … Which is good.
Poynter: Many of the SND founders have gone on to consulting positions, right?
Gray: They’re almost all consultants. What’s interesting is that there are hardly any American newspapers among the client lists for these consultants. It’s all overseas.
Poynter: Why do you think that is?
Gray: Because they’re better at it than we are … the overseas newspapers.
Robert (Lockwood) tells marvelous stories about redesigning a paper in Germany and, for the first month of the project — he’ll do nothing but drive around the city and listen to the city — try to figure out what it means to live there and what kinds of people are there … I don’t know too many American publishers who will do that.
I think the chain mentality (in American newspapers) has a lot to do with a lack of vision. And, lately, it’s been the bottom-line mentality, too. That’s probably made more of a difference than anything else.
In Argentina … a lot of people down there designing all of these marvelous pages and graphics that win awards are actually trained as architects … Somebody looked around the industry and realized that they needed more designers in newspapers. Schools weren’t necessarily producing designers. But … the economy just couldn’t absorb all of the people graduating from architectural programs. So newspaper leaders went out and recruited at the architectural school for page designers.
For years, people have been calling me up and saying “I’m trying to find a designer –- I can’t find anyone good!” My response has always been, “Where are you looking? You probably won’t find them in the journalism schools. You’re looking in the wrong place.”
Poynter: There are a lot of new student chapters of SND in the last decade.
Gray: We dropped the (membership) price so low; that’s one reason that our membership is at an all-time high. We’ve got a lot of students — 280, almost 300 students. That fluctuates up and down. It all depends on who the faculty advisor is and how interested they are in making it happen.
Poynter: What can professional SND members do to make sure that students are well-trained?
Gray: Well, some of the students are probably ready. But I’ve always said it’s far easier to learn journalism than it is to learn design. On the job, you know what I mean? So for a trained designer to come in and latch on to the journalism … is a lot easier than a person who’s been educated as a journalist to learn how to do design.
Poynter: You developed a graphics program for professionals that ran for 10 years at RISD. That was new ground for a lot of newspaper artists.
Gray: We started around ’82. The Rhode Island School of Design (was) a trade school for machine design, textile, and jewelry design.
The publisher was talking to the board of trustees of RISD and said, “Gee, newspapers need designers and I don’t see RISD graduating them.” The project was handed over to the continuing education school … I became involved to help set it up.
We started with “Who can we have come in to do something with maps and charts and diagrams?”
I sat down and noodled together a program. I talked to the school about a weeklong program. We said, “We’ll get Nigel Holmes and Edwin Taylor, Ed Miller, and Robert Lockwood.” Richard Curtis came once or twice, I believe.
Robert (Lockwood) tells marvelous stories about redesigning a paper in Germany and, for the first month of the project — he’ll do nothing but drive around the city and listen to the city.George Rorick was at all 10 of the seminars. He used to come and show us how they did the USA Today weather.
One of my jobs (was) … to pick the 20 people that we wanted. I would send the list to Nigel … We tried to make the list as diverse as possible. You know, male, female, whatever.
Poynter: Was it fairly diverse?
Gray: No. It was a lot of white guys. That’s who was working at newspapers at the time, unfortunately … There were a few women, early on.
Poynter: What qualities do you think will be most important for your successor?
Gray: We do a little of everything there. Anything that SND publishes comes through here, so it’s read by three people … We have a big hand in the (Best of Newspaper Design) book, too.
Poynter: The website has been developed since you became executive director. Tell me about one part of the site -– newspagedesigner.com. (This is a site where designers around the world post their pages and graphics to get feedback.)
Gray: That’s totally Tim Frank, it’s all been done by Tim. That is the last vestige of entrepreneurship that used to have a lot to do with SND in the early years. Tim came up with the idea and said, “I’ll do it.” He made it work.
That’s the model of SND, or it always was. Johnny Maupin (now retired from the Louisville Courier) said, “Why don’t we have a (newspaper design) contest?” We said, “Do you want to run it?” That’s just the way things got started. He did the first edition out of Louisville.
Poynter: Will you still stay involved in SND after you retire?
Gray: I don’t know. Maybe 25 years is enough!
Poynter: You can’t give it up.
Gray: Probably won’t be able to.
