As a web designer who is always worrying about page widths and formatting of posts, I found this video clip fascinating. The proliferation of devices on which our page layouts can now be viewed is bewildering. So the ability to reformat your pages to any screen size is really important. I think the fold arguement really now is dead. I’m really taken with the nation of ’stepping out of the browser’, as the web explodes across a whole range of devices.

New York Times R&D Group: Newspaper 2.0 from Nieman Journalism Lab on Vimeo.

This idea occurred to me in a recent meeting, as Andy was telling us about a post he had contributed to on magculture. I explained that last year I had read an article in the Guardian about how fluorescent jackets to make people stand out now infact renders them invisible. This led me to the conclusion that in the modern world fluorescent colours no longer stand out they recede, and I wondered what impact this had on the news stand?

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In my travels around the web, I came across this little video. I’m afraid showstudio don’t provide an embed file, so you will have to visit their blog post. Strangely, I personally think it makes more sense as a little film than as a cover. Which even though it’s a fold out cover, feels a bit vague. I suspect the music jollies the film version along for me.

But I think static cover images becoming moving web images shows how different mediums allow you to deliver against the same brief but with different solutions. The medium is the massage, after all. Ta.

I see Barack Obama has adopted the font Gotham for his ‘Change’ poster, banner, flags etc campaign. As many of you know, Gotham is sweeping the magazine world as the font to use, so much so that it’s being dubbed ‘the new helvetica’.

Speaking on the recent helvetica film, about the font, typographers Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones said that “GQ [the magazine that originally commissioned it] had a dual agenda of wanting something that would look very fresh, yet very established, to have a credible voice to it, It also needed to look very masculine and “of-the-moment.” That description pretty much sums up both the font and Obama. This got me thinking. If Obama is Gotham, what font is McCain? Arial, Cooper, Antique Olive…?

But let’s not stop there, what about our own Gordon Brown? David Cameron? …er George Osborne? Your suggestions please…

I’ll get the ball rolling… George W Bush – Comic Sans

Let’s cut to the chase: it doesn’t take a genius to work out that this business we’re in, like just about any other you care to mention, is going through some harsh times right now and facing some tough choices ahead.

It’s also blindingly obvious that one of the major ways that we, as journalists, can continue to play a meaningful role is to take every oppoprtunity to master all the tricks in the book when it comes to reaching our audience wherever they may be and whenever they may be there. Which is a round-about way of saying we need to get online, offline, mobile, outside, inside, upside, downside… whatever it takes to make sure that we are able to communicate as very best we can. (more…)

Recently I have been thinking about those illustrated ladybird books, and I have also  treated myself to the an anthology of Eagle cutaways. I am to young to have seen the originals but they hold an amazing position at a moment when people felt technology and its development should be easily understood. Anyway now they just seem quaint.

But it was whilst recently watching a Royksopp video that I realised that I actually do think rain is caused by comic book waves with a yellow ball shinning on them causing white lines to rise into the sky and form clouds. Because you can’t actually see the process the infographics become real. (more…)

I guess it’s because all the recent news has been so gloomy, but this story really cheered me up.

Twiistup is an event which runs out in California for start-up websites where entrepeneurs get to attend a swanky do at a prestigious venue, sip lots of martinis, swap business cards and generally make out like they’re about to become the next ruler of the universe.

In other words, it’s just like the last 10 years never happened, just like the good old days of the internet boom before it all went bang and we had to built it up again, on stronger foundations, from the technorubble. (more…)