Once a year, designers from around the world gather at the Society for News Design Workshop for two and a half days of networking, looking at people’s work and chatting about visual journalism at the hotel bar. In between SNDs over the years, we’ve stayed in touch as best we can — but without a real gathering point.
That started changing about 18 months ago when Robb Montgomery, then an editor at the Chicago Sun-Times, created VisualEditors.com.
When you think about it, visual journalism is a small community. And newspaper design is a niche that isn’t generally discussed in mainstream graphic design. Or necessarily understood.
As a designer fresh from art school, the rules of news design were foreign to me. I cut out photos, ran type all over them and committed every sin of visual journalism possible. I learned the hard way and had little direction.
VisEds has helped fill the need in the industry for intelligent discussion about visual journalism. Beyond the yearly SND workshop or a seminar, there didn’t exist much opportunity for getting feedback about your work or to connect with people who shared a common goal. Now it’s as easy as posting a page online.
Some features of the site include discussion forums, podcasts, page galleries and page critiques and a very cool area that features recent redesigns.
In general, I’m a lurker in discussion forums as opposed to a poster. But what I get from this one is real discussion about the use of visuals in the news. For instance, a recent post about checking the background of crowd shots from games for inappropriate signs and such. It’s a funny post and something we can all relate to.
Podcasts have become the hottest thing on the Web. Montgomery has hosted podcasts that have featured designers talking about redesigns, discussions from the SND workshop, and a discussion about pages from Katrina, to name a few.
One of my favorite features in the redesign gallery is the Zoomify tool. One of the frustrating things about the launch of a new redesign is that I can’t see all of the pages. Usually just the front page from the Newseum site. Zoomify lets you look at all the details of a page. Pair that with a podcast with the designer talking about the redesign and you have a great case study.
Staying connected to the visual journalism community is an essential part of professional growth. Sites such as VisEds allow the experience of a conference to continue all year.
It’s still great to connect in person, of course. So wee you at SND Orlando next year!
Other good sites to check out:
NewsDesigner.com
SND | Poynter visual journalism discussion list
