08/04/2008

Fresh designs on your graphics department

Michael Agar, graphics editor at The Independent on Sunday, writed an article for Press Gazette two days ago about the role of infographics on newspapers. You can access the whole article on the previous link, but here are some of the sentences I would like to highlight:

Is it right that graphics can only be maps and charts, or the excruciatingly clichéd artistic impressions of military positions being bombed into oblivion?
We must move away from the dull and the obvious and ask serious questions regarding the content and structure of an infographic, just as we would a written piece of journalism. What about the “why?” and the “where?” By “how much?” and “how does this compare?”.


Our profession has not moved on over the past 15 years, but our readers have. Today’s readers and viewers demand visual content, interactivity and non-traditional narrative. But most of all they demand information.


Understand that infographics are not illustrations that merely support the text, they can also show and explain much more to your reader. Information, not decoration


Raising the journalistic standard of your graphics staff is a priority. For these editorial changes to be successfully implemented, your graphics editor and their staff must be encouraged to think like journalists, and not as artists.


You can't imagine how much I agree with most of this

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