Dubai: The Society for News Design president Steve Dorsey was in the UAE to formally open the SND Award Winners Exhibition at the American University of Sharjah. The group represents news media professionals and visual communicators in the US with regional representation worldwide.
It organises an annual competition among global publications to judge the best-designed pages. The UAE has in recent years featured prominently among the top ten countries with the best designed newspapers.
During his trip, Dorsey also paid visits to Gulf News and gave presentations to the staff. In an interview he provides an overview on the status of design elements in putting together a newspaper or magazine.
GULF NEWS: How do you feel news design has evolved in this region?
Steve Dorsey: There's clearly been an emphasis shift in recent years with the major titles focusing on serving their readers through a renewed commitment in high-quality storytelling, of which design is a critical component.
The recent redesign of some publications has increased the quality of design at both English and Arabic newspapers.
Apart from the glossy paper, what catches your attention about newspapers here?
The glossy paper is tops and hard to miss. I'm very jealous of the incredible print quality, rich colours and consistent clarity.
The large broadsheet format it definitely a welcome change to the ever-shrinking page dimensions — and number of pages per edition — you find in the majority of US papers due to the cost of paper.
I would love a chance to design a number of pages in Mena editions — covers or interiors — just to get a sense of working in the larger dimensions and different proportions. It would be exhilarating.
I also appreciate the clever illustration and information graphic styles. They're clear and direct, but refreshingly new approaches in many cases I've seen.
What are corresponding trends in Western newspapers?
We've seen a lot of tightening of space and staff reductions lately. One of the worst trends we've seen in the US is the decimation of too many information graphics positions — entire departments in some cases — leaving a number of papers with no one dedicated to this important work.
Instead they share the chores with professionals trained in other primary disciplines. Space is getting tighter and tighter in many publications, and the large information graphics and larger display photo pages is rare.
Great work is still being done, of course, but it's more focused around special events and smaller spaces and the biggest news days.
The impact of a steep increase in shared design work coming from a number of corporate newspaper chain-based design centres has yet to be fully seen, but is definitely something we're eagerly watching.
What differences do you see in regional themes or styles of news design around the world?
Although there are definitely stereotypes — Latin American and Spanish papers are considered more colourful, German papers have better typography and design discipline, Scandinavian papers use daring visuals and illustrations — these trends shift more quickly nowadays with the use of the internet to share and comment on work in real-time.
I've also seen a greater occurrence of viral visual trends in some cases.
What are the challenges of adapting wide-broadsheet newspapers to the space constraints created by mobile and digital platforms?
I don't think "space" is quite so analogous when you consider broadsheet design versus mobile smartphone and tablet app design. The "space" in those cases should be considered in layers instead.
For me, the key to a great app is a great user experience where the designer has anticipated my needs — the kind of information, the depth of detail and the ease of search needed at a given moment. This is different for mobile apps than tablets, and definitely from websites.
Do you have a list of countries that are investing in high quality design?
I'm not sure I can list samples by country; I've seen examples of great design all over the world.
Design qualities can shift rather quickly depending on so many variables. That aside, I definitely think the UAE and the surrounding region should be proud of the performance of their papers.
