The Mario Blog

03.13.2009—5am    Post #534
The Craft: how Da Vinci and Beckham can join forces on a magazine cover

TAKEAWAY: Often lately, as we wake up each morning to worsening news of how our industry is doing in the midst of the worst global economic crisis ever, we tend to forget what our real job is. I just realized that this blog space has NOT dealt with craft-related issues for weeks, as our efforts (call it a mini campaign?) have been to discuss survival tips and possibilities for newspapers and publishing houses everywhere to carve themselves a little breathing room that will allow them to contniue operating. Today we change that with this posting.

blog post image

blog post image
Simple hand drawn sketches help to convey the importance of proportions for this cover, inspired by Da Vinci’s The Vitruvian Man

It’s all about proportion and balance

Yesterday,I found myself forgetting momentarily the state of the economy and its effects on newspapers, and, instead, working with an art director here in Paris on a specific assignment: a magazine cover concept.

We have tried some sixty versions of this cover, with different logo combinations, with more navigation, with less navigation, one photo, two photos. The editors pop in from time to time, and chime in with their views and their questions:

How many teasers is too many on the cover of a weekly magazine?
I say: it depends on what magazine we are talking about, but in this specific one, all about sports, inserted in a newspaper, then an intelligent navigator of cover story and two or three other well selected “must read” items inside will do it. They tend to agree.

Are readers today interested in a magazine cover that only displays ONE story?
I say: Again, it depends on the story; but I am more inclined to say that you must offer at least two other alternatives. I may not be at all interested in the football cover story, but that rugby promo grabs my attention, so I go directly to that..

But, as soon as the editors have left, their fears of the moment perhaps calmed by these answers , then the art director and I turn our attention back to the cover, but not in terms of navigation. This time our discussion is more about proportion, space and distance.

Yes, these are the three main ingredients that drive how items are placed on a page.

Although the cover we discuss includes a glamorous image of that most marketable of footballers, David Beckham, I sit down to sketch why the page does not work, why headlines do not align properly, and why David’s head should rise above the headlines that surround his image.

Enter Italian genius, Leonardo Da Vinci, that true Renaissance Man, and perhaps the man for whom the term was coined. Da Vinci was a scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, painter, sculptor, architect, botanist, musician and writer. And, although “designer” is not listed here, Da Vinci has inspired anyone working in the field of design who took the time to review his work, very especially The Vitruvian Man, a most seen drawing created by Da Vinci around 1487. The drawing, which is in pen and ink on paper, depicts a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions
.
To Da Vinci, the drawing represents ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture.

For years, I have used that drawing when teaching basic design, regardless of medium: these proportions apply to how we place elements on the page of a newspaper, magazine or even the screen for online design.

The moment I produced the drawing of The Vitruvian Man, the art director understood the concept, and a new cover design appeared.
From Beckham to DaVinci in about 15 minutes, a satisfying discussion, a moment when we could remember what our real purpose is, and why we got into this business—-which may also be the reason we are so saddened and worried by the events affecting our beloved printed products.

I propose that we have a “craft” moment everyday. It is good for the mind. It is good for the soul. It is good for the products we are trying to save.

John Duncan in Garcia Interactive blog

Duncan writes that 85 percent of newspapers will be dead by 2011.

It pains me to say this because it wasn’t inevitable as recently as two years ago. But it is now. The math and the market pretty much guarantee it.

For complete blog posting:
http://garciainteractive.com/blog/view/35/

blog post image

Stop the Presses? Many Americans Wouldn’t Care a Lot if Local Papers Folded

According to a report published by the Pew Research Center for The People & The Press, most Americans would not cry too much if their local newspaper disappeared.

As many newspapers struggle to stay economically viable, fewer than half of Americans (43%) say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Even fewer (33%) say they would personally miss reading the local newspaper a lot if it were no longer available.Not unexpectedly, those who get local news regularly from newspapers are much more likely than those who read them less often to see the potential shutdown of a local paper as a significant loss.

For full report go here:
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1147/newspapers-struggle-public-not-concerned

Preparing for the Zero Newspaper Town

A story in The New York Times: As Cities Go From Two Papers to One, Talk of Zero

….now, some economists and newspaper executives say it is only a matter of time — and probably not much time at that — before some major American city is left with no prominent local newspaper at all.

No one knows which will be the first big city without a large paper, but there are candidates all across the country. The Hearst Corporation, which owns The Post-Intelligencer, has also threatened to close The San Francisco Chronicle, which lost more than $1 million a week last year, unless it can wring significant savings from the operation.

For full article go here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12papers.html?_r=1

Seeking Internships During Difficult Times

Stefan Jaeger is a young Austrian journalist who has received a journalism fellowship to visit and learn for six weeks at a U.S. newspaper of his choice. Stefan and I have been corresponding about this program for sometime now. Except that when he got approved and sent me his list of top five newspapers he would like to visit, I noticed that three of his choices are newspapers on the so called “dangered species” list. He reacts in his own blog, which I invite you to read. Here is a quote:

I am 27 and thus spent a good part of my life reading news online. For 6 years now I have been working as a print journalist. While I am still an avid reader of blogs and online news I have never believed more in print than today.

For Stefan’s blog post:
http://mindwork.net/myblog/?p=1244

:blog post image
To read TheRodrigoFino blog, in Spanish, go:
https://garciamedia.com/latinamerica/blog/

TheMarioBlog posting #213

The Mario Blog