This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed.  The next new post is scheduled Monday, Feb. 6

TAKEAWAY: Time for office file cleaning, and the discovery of bulky files of another era.  However, the scraps of paper brought back the memories.  How will we reminisce without the tangible collective memory that those pieces of paper provide?

I had this thought suddenly and through pure observation: will we miss our contact with paper “memories” in the future?

As I organized things around my home office, stopping often to revisit a project of many years ago, it was a three-hour journey into another time, a very different era.  For starters, as I read through my old “diaries”, I realized how much work I kept doing with US newspapers.

So much has happened and changed since those days.

What really caught my attention, with a sense of curiosity, was the dramatic transformation that has taken place in the way one writes a book today.

As you know, I am busy writing my first digital book, Storytelling in the Times of the iPad.  It will be the 12th title that I will have published when it appears.  Everyday, my able copilot, Reed Reibstein, Garcia Media art director/project manager, and I work feverishly to advance the manuscript.  Reed edits, designs and plays the role of the audience.  I especially ask him to think like a university student when checking the manuscript.  Reed graduated from Yale University in May 2011, so he remembers well how students of today act and what they expect from their textbooks.

But back to my office cleaning detail:  I encountered the manuscript and notes for my first book Contemporary Newspaper Design (Prentice-Hall, 1978), and what a surprise it was to revisit all my notes, along with letters and handwritten notes from a variety of art directors and editors who contributed pages for the book.

It just dawned on me that I have not collected a single piece of paper in relation to the writing of Storytelling in the Times of the iPad.  Everything is on digital files, from correspondence, to quotes, to my own research, it is all there, chapter by chapter, edited, to be edited, illustrations, but all there. Not one scrap of paper.

Not that I am complaining, as I am one to move forward.

However, it will be difficult to recreate the “experience of writing the book” the way I have enjoyed it while reorganizing my home files.  There will not be bulky files with yellowed and brittle pieces of paper that are an instant send off to the days when I was writing the book.

One scrap of paper at a time

Among the most interesting discoveries in my nostalgic sweep through the files for Contemporary Newspaper Design:

1. My outline was simple, with just phrases to guide me in my own organizing of the book: At The Beginning, Let’s Do It, Trial and Error……

2. Notes comparing the impact of television on printed newspapers with my handwritten sentence that read: Newspapers are not hurt by television but by their deplorable design

3. And in an interview with Frank Ariss, then art director of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I asked what the most dramatic change would be for their redesign: “We dropped the word Minneapolis from the logo.“

4. On Bodoni, that iconic newspaper font, these were my thoughts at the time: “Bodoni is a beloved font by American newspapers.  Bodoni will continue”.
Well, I am not swallowing my words on that one.  I still think Bodoni deserves a place in the Newspaper Type Hall of Fame, and, indeed, I have worked with a variation of it as recently as the past 12 months with The Washington Post and its beautiful and elegant Postoni..  Indeed, that Bodoni has staying power. I had a scribble to remind me that the French Revolution had not taken place and Beethoven had not written any music yet but Bodoni was already in use.  How many fonts can make that claim?  And, indeed, I did have notes to myself about the rise of Futura “for those who want to be modern” (around since 1937, which would have made it a young 40 at the time of my notes).

5. I am still proud of having said, in my notes of 1977; “Newspapers simply cannot continue to look dull”.

6. A sign of the times, circa mid 1970s: I found myself, time and again, writing myself notes to make sure that my book made this point: Newspapers can be attractive while maintaining their immediacy.  Today that statement would still apply, but the issue of interest would be that newspapers can continue to be, while embracing their digital extensions.

7. The idea that readers are quite accepting of change. I found one of my handwritten notes to myself that read: The Des Moines Tribune moved the Page One weather forecast that had been at the top, next to the logo, since 1909, with no major repercusions.

8. Who can forget those days when so many American newspapers turned to the “magazine look and feel”.  One of the clippings I found in my book research file mentioned that James Bellows, of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, planned to make the newspaper “pretty much a daily magazine of the news.“  For whatever reasons, the Herald Examiner went out of business November 2, 1989/

9. As with the writing of any book, there are so many things that do not get into the book.  Contemporary Newspaper Design was no exception, and I was quite happy to see that many of those themes did get into my lectures and presentations, and continue to be an important part of what I do and promote. Thoughts like:

Whether the reader becomes vocal about visual organization or not, he/she nevertheless perceives visual organization, or the lack of it . (By the way, this applies to digital design as well).

If order is perceived immediately, so is continuity/sequence within the design of a publication

In literature, point of view represents the perspective from which the author tells the story.  Design also conveys a point of view.  Ideally, a well designed piece evolves as a means of accurately presenting the point of view of the message.

A student recently asked me how he could design a page with “just type”.  I answered that designing with just type can be challenging but exciting.  Type can skip. Type can bite, or it can twist. It can jump.  It can go underwater.  It can “attack” the reader. The most creative approach to type is the one that hasn’t been used yet.  ( I guess this is where the “type attack” phrase came from.  The original question from the student was in 1978)

Award winning entries in Communication Arts (1980) included: Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni, Garamond, Goudy.
Nice group: you still can’t go wrong with any of them, for sure.

10. The content of the message should be the designer’s first priority  Some things never grow old.

So, as I get ready to edit the Multi Media chapter of the new book, I am feeling a bit nostalgic for the way we compiled printed copies of articles, handwritten notes from friends who contributed their materials to the book, the occasional personal note from a big name editor or designer.

Don’t take me wrong, I have all of that on the desktop of my MacBook Air, but I bet it will be a more difficult task to revisit it, to touch it, to feel it and to use it as a ticket to another era, the way I did yesterday while organizing my office.

Photo of the day

He obviously likes his newspaper in Delhi

Speaking of our love with paper, here is a photo published in today’s Bild, sent by our blog correspondent in Europe, Frank Deville.

How a newspaper name change gets showcased

It is good to come home to one of my hometown newspapers, Tampa Bay Times (the former St. Petersburg Times). I admit that it is still a little bit of a shock to see that new name on the front page.

The Times changed its name January 1, but the marketing campaign to introduce the new name continues, as we see here.  Passengers arriving at the Tampa International Airport sample an advertisement like this in the baggage claim area, for example.

TheMarioBlog post #940

TAKEAWAY: All that frequent talk about iPads being a “lean back” platform may be one reason that longer narratives do so well there.  A new app celebrates the long story.  Newspaper editors may take a cue from it. 

Writers everywhere, celebrate.  Long form journalism may be the new black—on the iPad, at least.  The longer narratives are back, but did they ever leave?

I have no doubt whatsoever that the iPad is a great platform for long form journalism.
The fact that , as we begin to hear from various sources, the iPad is a “lean back” platform, used primarily in the evening ( 8 to 10 pm, prime time iPad use in many cases), there is no reason to doubt that the time and mood will encourage users to read longer pieces for which they may have not had time during the day.

If, as I insist, the tablet is very close to the book in how we use it, when we use it, and how we approach it, then I can imagine that this new app, to be published by the appropriately called longform.org, will be well received.  Based on the information provided, the app will initially feature Longform.org’s top 25 most popular sources, which range from the websites of monthly magazines like GQ, The Atlantic and The New Yorker to online-only offerings such as The Awl, Grantland and Longreads (a like-minded aggregator).

The app premiered Feb. 1 and I have downloaded it for a look.

As an aggregator, this app takes the user to a variety of publications where a specific article can be found and read in its entirety.

The app is simple and easy to use, basically two elements in the navigator: Readability, which stores reading list articles you want to read later; one can also bookmark within the Longform app and from anywhere on the web.

This app works both in vertical and horizontal landscape modes. It costs $4.99 to download the app.

The offerings for “long form reading,” provide an incredible variety of topics, such as:

The first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century (guardian.co.uk)

Con artist starred in sting that cost Google millions (online.wsj.com)

Let the robot drive (wired.com)

The story of a suicide (newyorker.com)

and, a fun one,

It’s Saturday Night! (vanityfair.com)

As everything else with the iPad, stories will have to be better to justify being longer.

In one of my workshops this week, to a regional newspaper group, I reminded them that it is more difficult to be an editor, a designer, and, of course, a publisher in today’s media environment.  The demands are greater for creative and innovative people who decide to work in tablet publishing.

App fun with the Oscars

The New York Times and Facebook launch app for Oscars
http://www.mediamughals.com/News/1/4/Article/9020/The_New_York_Times_and_Facebook_launch_app_for_Osc

First paragraph: The New York Times and Facebook have joined hands for a social media project that will allow users to cast and share their interactive ballots for this year’s Academy Awards with their Facebook friends.Users can access the Oscar Ballot App on NYTimes.com to view the official nominations and select a winner for each category.

My take: This is the type of interaction between users and the media that we will be seeing more of in the future.  I am curious and delighted to see the NYTimes and Facebook alliance for interestint projects like this. It is a clear indication of the dramatic change that has taken place in our industry, with even the major media players, like the Times, coming to terms with the extremely important social media, and coming to the central square to join it.  Moments that redefine the media, circa 2012, and where the audience wins big time.

TheMarioBlog post #939

TAKEAWAY: It’s the first newspaper entirely created for the iPad and this week The Daily turns one. Like one year olds, it’s starting to walk, has teething pains and not talking much to me yet.

Just about a year ago I bought myself a pair of Asics running shoes, the white and blue ones.  Somehow, these shoes are NOT my favorite to take out on a run, although I occasionally give them a try, go out for a jog with them, and return them to the closet.

Call it a neutral, not very warm relationship.  I would not take those specific Asics on a race where I wanted to score a personal best.

About the same week I got those Asics, in February 2010, The Daily came out.

Like with my Asics running shoes, I have not gotten fully accustomed to The Daily.

This week, the first newspaper entirely created for the iPad, is turning one year old.

Happily, it is still here.

It is so much better than it was that second day of February 2011 when it first appeared, looking like a copy of the chatty New York Post microwaved and tabletized, then crossed over with copies of People and US Magazines.

Still, I paid for a trial subscription, and eventually took the self-renewable yearly subscription for $39.99.

A tough habit to cultivate?

Not that it is not appealing visually.  Not that the big tabloidy headline on the landing page does not grab you by the neck and pulls you in.  But somehow The Daily has not managed to capture my “habit”.

It is all about habits with what we choose to read daily, especially for our news fix.

I confess that I forget that I have the subscription to The Daily, then I return and sample an issue, and always love that carrousel navigator, and maybe turn to the Apps & Tech section, and, indeed, see the photo gallery in the Gossip section. That is that. Three minutes max for me, and that may be enough for a week or two or three.

I have seen improvement in The Daily that turns one this week.  The finger has more to do than in those early editions.  Videos appear more often.  Pop ups are considerably more frequent and interesting, especially when they take a photo and decide to give you two or three mini stories based on that one photo.

The Daily crew knows what its audience wants. It is obvious that they are learning how to make the tablet newspaper more “tablet friendly”.

Highlights to me are:

The Daily Briefing—a well designed table of contents that offers the editor’s choice of the best in that day’s edition

The headlines—there must be a Brit or an Australian behind some of those memorable headlines, like today’s Deja Newt! or Cruising for a Bruising (about FBI files that tell of brutal attacks on the high seas)

The animated graphics——although not enough yet!

The tap to zoom feature on photos—-Lately shoes have played a role, as when the Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard lost her shoe as police swept her away from angry protesters , or when Rob Gronkowski injured his ankle.

The interactivity—-We are invited to participate in polls, or just the simple question of the day. Users of the tablet WANT to participate.

The ads—-if there is one thing The Daily has done uniquely well from the start is in the presentation of advertising, the creation of the “advertising suites” and how the ads weave into the fabric of the app so well that they are not the type of nuisance we wish to eliminate from the screen, as happens in other news apps.

Yet, like with my Asics running shoes, I can’t seem to get used to The Daily.

The Daily and my Asics are not getting to be a habit with me. 

If I remember that my iPad has a fresh The Daily edition waiting, I may turn to it.
But I don’ t seek it. I don’t miss it. I don’t need it.

Attracting more users a must

Obviously, it has become a habit for many.  When The Daily first appeared, Rupert Murdoch said would take 500,000 subscribers to make it “viable.” It has a ways to go before hitting that. 

According to publisher Greg Clayman, The Daily has 250,000 monthly readers and 100,000 paid subscribers. Not bad, but it needs to keep working to become the necessary, memorable news app that will become a daily habit with another 200,000 potential users.

Here’s how The Daily could become part of my daily routine:

Name a pop up editor and take a look at the way Germany’s Bild let us have so much fun with sports and celebrity pop ups that keep the fingers happy too.

Give that Opinion section a more interactive, multi sensory role. Let me hear some of the columnists’ voices, and make those Bullet points less “print like” and more suitable for the tablet

Decide whether you wish to be a tabloid, irreverent newspaper app or a middle of the road, somewhat serious publication with emphasis on gossip and celebrity. I”d vote for fun and irreverent, as there is enough of the other.

I have not given up on those white and blue Asics in my closet.  I feel the same way about The Daily.

So, happy first birthday to The Daily, and many more.

Of related interest:
http://www.digiday.com/publishing/dailyonone/

Of special interest today

Going native: deciding between html5 and native apps
http://www.contentmatters.info/content_matters/2012/01/going-native-deciding-between-html5-and-native-apps.html

Highlight: For most publishers, the iPad has emerged as the key tablet platform, with no clear second choice. It’s possible that the Kindle Fire may become a clear number two, but that’s not happened yet. And while smartphones are ubiquitous, the question will be whether your customers view phones as a real way to access your content.

Be better at Twitter: the definitive data driven guide
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/be-better-at-twitter-the-definitive-data-driven-guide/252273/

Highlight: A study based on 43,000 responses to Tweets found precisely what people like—and loathe—about microblog posts.

Tip: Nobody cares whether you are eating a BLT sandwich or a delicious bowl of granola and berries. Keep your food intake out of the Twitter hemisphere.

An Apple TV set in 2012?
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/01/an-apple-tv-set-in-2012/?source=yahoo_quote

Highlight: The hardware is the easy part. The trick is to get Hollywood on board

The “pop up” of the day

Our blog correspondent in Europe, Frank Deville, sends us this image from today’s Bild—-the German daily—-and what may be our first sighting of the so called “iPott”.

The iPott is the creation of Serbian designer, Milos Paripovic, and Bild is quick to point out that so far it is only a design concept, and that Apple is not likely to approve of Mr. Paripovic creation

No comments.

TheMarioBlog post #938

TAKEAWAY: Money magazine has invested time and creativity in a great looking iPad app that I recommend you sample.  Following quickly in the footsteps of its print redesign, this tablet edition is elegant, clean and functional.

As with the print redesign, design director Neil Jamieson tells us the story behind the new iPad tablet edition in the Society of Publication Designers website.  I found very interesting that he mentioned this:

Our print redesign at Money coincided with the big push over here at Time Inc to get all the company’s titles up and running on both the iPad and 16x9 ratio devices (kindle fire, nook color, samsung galaxy etc). The timing couldn’t have been better as it meant that we where able to work out the navigation and structural logic of the print with the design of the tablet in mind and vice versa. This meant that rather than the tablet being a reaction to the print, the design/architecture and logic of one was able to inform the other.

In that statement, emphasize the reference to: “The timing couldn’t have been better as it meant that we where able to work out the navigation and structural logic of the print with the design of the tablet in mind and vice versa.”

It is that way that all news apps should be planned.

I am presently working on the chapter titled Look & Feel for my digital book, Storytelling in the times of the iPad, and I start by writing that an app must give us a sense of anticipation, that first impression that counts so much not just in tablet design, but also when we buy food at the supermarket or a pair of shoes or gloves.

We must like what we see.  We must feel invited.  We must immediately get a sense of direction and know where to go from there.

The new Money app does that immediately, and does it well.

You may read all of the details of the redesign in the wonderful SPD piece.

But I must call attention to one area of particular interest, which I think advances
tablet design, just as it should be.

“Spreading it Out”

Jamieson calls it “spreading it out”—moving across screens as needed to tell the story.

Indeed, we must not look at the limited and smallish canvas of the iPad screen as the limit. We must imagine that there is room at the top, the bottom, the left and the right, just a swipe or a scroll away.

The Money app does this, and when you see the various combined screens side by side you feel like you would like to take them and hang them on your wall.

Jamieson writes that “Having the ability to use as many cells as we need to tell a story has been liberating for our design and photo teams. We try and let our cells breath so the content is easy to read and the viewer knows where to look. We often run the photos across multiple cells for greater impact. The the seamless effect keeps the reader advancing through the app. “

It is sort of like playing the Ouija board, for those who may remember that fun game. You place your fingers on the planchette, a small heart shaped piece of wood, and let them move in whichever directions over letters of the alphabet, or numbers, or words like hello and goodbye. I remember playing Ouija board on rainy days in Miami during hurricane season as a teenager.

What the Ouija board effect does for the app designer, I believe, is to guide orientation beyond the confines of the small screen.

The designers at Money Magazine have shown that the tablet allows us to think of the large landscape, then lets our fingers guide us to every corner of it.

Skip, hop, up and down was never more practical and fun.

TheMarioBlog post #937

TAKEAWAY: So a large member of our media audiences are involved in reporting, sharing and interacting with us directly.  Perhaps there should be an Intro to Media course taught in every high school, to prepare a generation of media consumers to be better prepared for the important role they are already playing, which is likely to grow tremendously in the future.

Getting citizens to become better media consumers has always been a goal in democratic societies.  However, unless I have missed such a happening, few high schools devote courses to teaching students about the media, how it works and how to interact with it better.  In college, students of journalism get it all in the usual intro course, although I doubt it very much that biology or psychology majors, among others,  enroll in those courses, unless they take them as an elective.

Much has changed since I went to school, and even more since I taught journalism.  Today, the role of the audience has expanded.  Readers create ecosystems. They become sources.  Readers play the role of “journalists” who, armed with mobile telephones that duplicate as photo and video cameras, as well as tape recorders, provide the necessary tools to report on an event they may attend or come face to face with.

The days when a journalist played tennis against a wall (a passive, receptive audience) are over, I often say in my workshops. Today, journalists play tennis against the likes of Serena Williams. It is a back and forth, with audiences as willing, energized participants.

It is the age of Twitter, the bullet train of breaking news.

It is also the era of Facebook, with all its “me, me and you, you”style of storytelling.

Media Appreciation 101

So, I think it makes perfect sense to have a course in every high school devoted to media appreciation and interaction.  Perhaps it should be required in the senior year, just like we were required to have a Communism versus Democracy course in our senior year of high school in the 60s, at the height of the Cold War.

A generation of citizens who are better informed about how the media works, and how they may contribute to improve it, will constitute better partners for journalists.  We are not going to unring the bell of reader participation.  Not that we should.

The relationship between publisher and audience has been dramatically altered forever. 
Better education will enhance that relationship.  Publishers need to learn more about the needs for participation and interaction on the part of this new breed of audience, which is everything but passive.

Audiences need to know about journalistic ethics, copyright laws, and to remember that the professional journalist is trained to do the job of reporting and interpreting the news beyond that first Tweet. 

Most respectable journalists I come in contact with wish to improve their relationship with readers, to know more about their goals and aspirations.

It should all begin with a good introductory course, which, of course, should include the basics of reporting, making a video and taking photos.  I can envision a course syllabus with such entries as : “you witness an event, learn how to write a good summary,“ “making a ready for YouTube video”, “Tweets that seduce and invite Retweets”, not to mention “photojournalism 101,102 and 103, how to get you picture on the front page of your local paper.“

Readers are already seriously involved in some of these activities, as so many recent newsbreaking events have demonstrated.  A better educated audience will make for better partners in continuing to build the ecosystems that flow between journalists and audience.

If such courses exist already, I’d love to know more about them!

TheMarioBlog post #936

This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and it will be updated as needed.The next blog post is scheduled Monday, January 30. Next week reporting from Mexico

TAKEAWAY: So The Miami Herald is moving its operations to a different location.  To me, the building at One Herald Plaza will always be the place where I discovered what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

It seems like only yesterday

The Miami Herald is moving from its downtown prime spot on Biscayne Bay, with views that extend all the way to Miami Beach.

That’s the type of news that makes a ton of memories suddenly rush down from the attic, hug you with impatience, demand your attention and make the pages of the calendar fly off in different directions, stopping somewhere in 1967.  That was the year that I first entered that memorable building at One Herald Plaza.

I was a summer intern, doing my work for the afternoon newspaper, The Miami News, which had a joint operating agreement with The Herald at the time.  The two dailies and their staffs coexisted nicely, in the same building, sharing the same cafeteria, and happily enjoying the attentions of Miami readers in those days when newspapers were king, their buildings were institutions with the status of churches for some,  and life without the printed editions of The Herald in the morning and The News in the afternoon would have been difficult and unthinkable.

And so I remember so well the morning my father dropped me off for my first day of work there.  It was 4:45 am, still dark, but already hot, as Miami summers tend to be.  Dad was driving his 1954 Packard,a Cuban refugee proud to own a car in his adopted country, and even prouder of the fact that I was one of a dozen summer interns chosen for the privilege of learning all about newspapering while enjoying the best views of the city.

What is that floating on the Bay?

The waters behind the Miami Herald building would yield more than just great scenic views, however; occasionally a body would be found floating in the early hours of the morning, and we would rush to the huge windows looking out on the bay, wondering about “the story” behind the find. 

My day would always begin in the sports department, collecting long strips of wire copy constantly emerging from those noisy Associated Press or United Press International machines that chugged along all day and night.

With my wooden ruler in hand, I would separate the sports agate (results) according to teams and sports, would then use the huge glue pot with the brush to paste the pieces together, grab my black editing pencil and apply editing marks to indicate caps, lower case, center, indent (all those things that the new generation sees as icons at the top of the screen now), and then proceed to work with the sports copy editors, separating copy, writing the occasional headline, or running to the “morgue” to look for a photo of Mickey Mantle or Muhammad Ali. 

While in the process, I would chat with Helen, the librarian with the Lucille Ball dresses and the same red hair.  The newspaper morgue had a special fascination for me, its bulging files revealing hundreds of yellowed clips,  complete stories and photos on all subjects.  Google on stacks. 

Culture and coffee

Then at 8:30 am it would be time for a break in the Herald’s cafeteria, where I would rush to find a seat by the window, and each morning the view of the Bay, and the extended buildings leading to Miami Beach would mesmerize me as I ate a cinnamon/sugar donut—-without a care in the world.  Those were the days before we knew that sugar hurt you and excess calories cut your life short. After all, at the age of 20 you think you are eternal. The Herald cafeteria was also my introduction to American coffee——watery, seemingly decaffeinated and just plain awful if you were used to those Cuban “cafecitos”, a bull in every cup before Red Bull was even there.

My mother would get up early to make me a cafecito before I went to the Herald, always reminding me that “this is what will keep you up and moving, not that weak and watery American concoction they call coffee.“  But, oh, America the Beautiful has a way of making all who come to its shores adapt, integrate, and love all that it has to offer, including its coffee.

Not only do I love American coffee, but so did my late mother, who until two days before she died, would have “a coffee with a little milk and sugar” for breakfast. Call it the Americanization of Maria Ofelia Garcia!

That Herald building, the sight and smell of those huge rolls of printing paper stacked waiting for the daily ritual of their marriage with ink, the sound of the press like a bullet train sure of its destination, all of it holds special meaning for me. It defined me, in fact.  It inoculated me with a one-time heavy dose of passion for our profession to last me a lifetime.

It was there that a series of rich experiences and pure discovery spelled out for me what I wanted to do for the rest of my life, 

Los Exilados: a series that angered some

I still remember the pride of that first byline “By Mario Garcia, The Miami News reporter,“ and my first participation in an award-winning series, titled Los Exilados, where I joined forces with one of the top reporters of the day, Bill Barry,as we spent weeks combing the Cuban neighborhoods for stories about the new immigrants, covering everything from doctors and nurses studying to revalidate their degrees while working as orderlies or waiters, to businessmen opening little coffee shops and restaurants in LIttle Havana, and even those involved in the oldest profession in the world, who simply transferred their trade from Havana to Miami.

I also remember how the series angered some fellow Cubans who did not want prostitutes included in the story.  Red paint was thrown at my house by a disgusted reader, accusing me of a being a pinko communist—-not stopping to read the intro to the piece that read that I was a Cuban exile myself.  My mother was so scared after that episode that she advised me to reconsider careers.

It was the one time I did not follow her advice.

What is that on the hood of the car?

It was at the Herald building that I was shocked the day that I went to get images from the wire machine and saw that photo with the blonde head of Jayne Mansfield, lying on the hood of a car, the night of June 29, 1967,  when she died in fiery car crash.  I also remember telling another intern next to me:

“Jayne Mansfield was decapitated”

To which he replied;

“Is she dead?“

The wise editor did not use that image, of course. But I still wonder where that fellow intern ended up.

Mario the tour guide

It was at the Herald that I heard an editor tell me: Mario, you speak more than one language, how would you like to cover the Miss Universe contest taking place in Miami Beach?

“Glad to do that, sir,“ I said, and off I went to stay among the beauties for 10 days, talking to them about their dreams, fashion, life in general and what they liked about Miami.  And then, befriending the Misses from Latin America, I offered some of them a little tour of Miami (for shopping purposes), but I did not have a car, so I asked my Dad for the old 1954 Packard, and you should have seen me taking three of the most beautiful girls in the world to go shopping at Burdines in a car with a door that did not close properly.  They surely were the most beautiful girls in their respective countries, but for three hours I was crowned King of Miami.

But it was not all glamorous assignments, of course.

In between there were the long days researching business stories like the opening of a huge soda canning factory, all numbers, machinery and descriptions of aluminum cans—-which I would have to make interesting for my readers, or days in the library digging details for a future obit of some famous politician, or compiling a string of mishaps for the police blog.

More importantly, it was in The Herald’s building that I sensed that newspaper design had the greatest appeal to me.  Armed with pica rulers, dummy sheets, grease pencils and tons of curiosity and courage, I would gravitate towards the copy editors (there were not designers in those days in a newspaper) who were doing the page make up and would sit by their side, eventually getting to do inside pages and inching my way to full pages.  One editor in particular, Howard Kleinberg, still represents my earliest reminiscence of the visual thinking journalist. He showed me by example about the importance of packaging the story to make it more attractive. Howard became my mentor, and remains so to this day. Talk about career door openers.

My return to the Herald building

Many years later,  I returned to this dear building of The Miami Herald in 2003, this time as a consultant to redesign the newspaper that is so dear to me.

By then I was driving a Mercedes, wearing a suit, holding meetings with then Publisher Alberto Ibarguen in the executive suite with the mega view of a new and even more beautiful Miami.  I had the honor of working with the most talented, avant garde and dedicated team of young people in that project, many of whom were not even born when I was an intern there.

The cafeteria was now serving cafecitos, along with black beans, rice and picadillo, not to mention pastelitos de guayaba (guava pastries).

It was a special time that only served to cement the memories of my start as a journalist in the city that I call my hometown.

Indeed, there is romance, glamour, and danger in journalism. It is what makes it the best profession in the world.

The group that has purchased The Miami Herald building has announced plans to build a $3.8 billion destination resort and casino at the site.

That’s not enough money to buy my memories of the place.

Read more here:
Miami Herald Media Co. moving headquarters to Doral complex
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/26/2609516/miami-herald-media-co-moving-headquarters.html

Of related interest:
If I could purchase The Miami Herald
http://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/If_i_could_purchase_the_miami_herald

TheMarioBlog post #935

TAKEAWAY: It is a new iPad app for Newsweek and it may represent what magazine apps will be like in 2012: moderation rules, reading mode is king, photos shine and, well, you will find one bell and one whistle, not a dozen.

Newsweek has introduced its new iPad app with the current edition of the newsmagazine.  We have taken a look.

It is friendly. It is visually familiar if you subscribe to the print edition—-which has undergone major changes since Tina Brown took over as editor a little over a year ago.  Just as the print edition thrives on the contrast of black, gray and red against ample white, the screen follows the same route.

In terms of navigation, there are two choices using Adobe’s paradigm: a vertical nav bar drops down on the left hand side of the screen to guide you to your next destination within the magazine, or you can browse by touching the upper right hand side of the screen where a browser icon appears.  That one offers what looks like a clothes line in the middle of the screen Tap the screen to bring up navigation tools, which work well.  There is scrolling, and there is swiping (scroll to read within an article, swipe to switch to the next piece). 

Grids fluctuate from full screen single columns, but with good interline spacing, to two column pages to variations based on a four-column grid.

I like the typography—Titling Gothic and Acta—and how it picks up where the new design of the print edition has made great improvements since the last redesign: good use of type to highlight quotes.

In this first issue of the new iPad, the highlight—the bells and whistles, but nicely done—appear for the magazine’s annual Oscar roundtable, where editors interview a select group of actors nominated for the Oscar.  This is always a fun read.  I had read it in the print edition of the magazine earlier today while flying towards Oslo, and now have experienced the iPad version: videos, audio and surprises abound here.

I must admit that this is the only part of the magazine that differentiated from the printed edition, but it is well done.

I also admit that my finger found itself tapping into static images for interactivity more than once, but I understand that, as I have said often, creating news iPad apps is an evolutionary process. This is a great start for Newsweek and I look forward to seeing it regularly.
 

Ironically, if Newsweek had tried to come out with an iPad app for its magazine a year ago, it probably would have done more to keep the finger busy. It seems like ages ago that magazines, specifically, thought they had to come out of the gate with tons of special effects. Everything, it seems, had to move, pop up or make a sound.  Now, we know that it does not have to be.  We just have to plan content flow, and finger activities, in a moderate but consistent manner.

Newsweek’s new iPad app did not quite achieve that balance, but it more than made up for it with how it handled the Oscars roundtable.  My suggestion: plan three levels of “finger activities” for each edition—-the simple pop up, the middle range pop up, and the lead pop up.

Let the designers, those twins in their bow ties, the Brothers Mueller, tell you all about their new creation:

TheMarioBlog post #934

Update #2: Wednesday, Jan. 25, Vienna, 08:40

TAKEAWAY: Now that the successful Financial Times series, Capitalism in Crisis,  is finished, Kevin Wilson, head of design, explains the concept of the “barcode” as a visual foundation to carry the series from one segment to the next.

When creative visual thinking works well

We have been highlighting interesting use of info graphics and visual concepts to tell stories in the blog lately.  One recent such post was about the use of a “barcode,“ a familiar symbol, to illustrate a series of articles about the world’s economy in the Financial Times.

This week I have received a mail from Kevin Wilson, head of design at the FT, who was pleased to see my reference to his team’s work and wanted to let me know.  In addition, Kevin has sent me the complete set of pages from that series: a wonderful, surprising collection of pages that are the textbook case study of how to treat a story graphically.

I was impressed by the subtle, but direct,  use of the barcode as a graphic element that created an instant element of recognition in the series, and told Kevin that. Here is what he had to say:

“From the scene-setter (the collapsing barcode), to the US angle, to the contrasting fortunes of western and eastern economies, to the political consequences, to alternative models based on partnership, and finally to possible fixes … the barcode shuffling back into line, the concept began as a straightforward logo but I thought it was a neat way to solve the problem of giving the series a distinct identity - created by in-house graphic artist Lloyd Thatcher.“

For those of us who observe and study graphics and design, the Financial Times examples show us all about the ultimate definition of good visual storytelling: 
Creative. Free of decorations. Tells the story at a glance.

Kevin has used an intriguing term in his correspondence with me: distilled story-telling

I asked him to amplify on it:

The distilled story-telling is an approach I try to bring to our big feature pages. Each day we’re confronted with heavyweight analysis, often on subjects that don’t suggest obvious visuals (credit default swaps anyone?). So we try to get to the essence of it with the visuals: does it always have to be told in a long story with one image (sometimes yes, and that’s fine)? But can we break it down into a storyboard of concepts and guide the reader through it that way?

And how does that represent the use of the barcode in that series?

The barcode came out of a discussion of what was the simplest but most widespread image to represent capitalism. In the past it might have been a price label - in a way this was an update. It had to be simple enough to use small as a logo but flexible enough to form the base of full-blown illustrations.

Getting that navigation storyboard right

Tuesday I spent most of the day in Vienna with the team of the Kronen Zeitung’s tablet team.

Indeed, a good presentation of the first interactive prototype for the KZ’s new tablet edition, premiering in the spring.  Here you see me going over the very important first step: navigation.
Working closely with our Garcia Media art director, Constantin Eberle, and the KZ team, headed by Robert Kuschela, we had started with a “storyboard” for the entire tablet edition, translating the contents of this, Austria’s largest circulation daily, and how it would flow in the tablet.  Also helping us with the concept, Florian Fromm.

The storyboard diagram covers the entire wall, but it is the only way for a tablet team to get a sense of orientation, a necessary first step before one can tend to design and storytelling details.

Stay tuned for case study of the Kronen Zeitung new tablet edition, which will be curated and will be ready for download each evening at 6 pm.  Presently, the Kronen Zeitung has a pdf tablet edition, extremely successful, and one that we will keep when the curated one appears.

WoodWing provides technical support for this project.

Of special interest today

People now watch videos nearly 30 percent longer on tablets than desktops
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/12/people-now-watch-videos-nearly-30-percent-longer-on-tablets-than-desktops/

Apple reports massive 2012 results
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/24/2730702/apple-reports-massive-q1-2012-results-with-46-33b-in-revenue

Highlight: On the software front, iTunes was responsible for $1.2 billion in revenue this quarter, and there are now 20 million songs in the store, and Apple says $120 million worth of downloads were sold on December 25th last year. Apple says by the end of this month, iOS developers will have earned over $4 billion in total from their work. Also, the new iBooks Author generated 600,000 downloads since last week’s release, and iCloud has 85 million users now.

- UK: ‘Historic’ Move for The Scotsman as iPad App is Launched
http://www.allmediascotland.com/press_news/32621/—historic—move-for-the-scotsman-as-ipad-app-is-launched

- UK: Murdoch to launch Sun on Sunday in April, says source
http://gordonsrepublic.brandrepublic.com/2012/01/23/murdoch-to-launch-sun-on-sunday-in-april-says-source/

- USA: Tablet/e-reader ownership doubles over holiday gift season, says Pew
http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/news_blog/comments/20120123_tablet_e-reader_ownership_doubles_over_holiday_gift_season_says_pe/

- Connected Europe: How Smartphones and Tablets are Shifting Media Consumption
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2012/Connected_Europe

- Tablets Are Prime-Time Media Devices
http://moconews.net/article/419-tablets-are-prime-time-media-devices

- Q&A: NewsRight’s David Westin on the value of news content in the digital age
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news-features/newsright-david-westin-licensing-copyright/s5/a547559

TheMarioBlog post #933

TAKEAWAY: It is mixed bag of news for newspapers as the last week of January 2012 starts.  One announces territorial expansions, a famous one may be up for sale, and a broadsheet Down Under beefs up coverage and makes new editorial appointments.  Welcome to the world of newspapers in an age of transitions.

These three well known titles are in the news for very different reasons

I don’t know about you, but I look forward daily to an email with the WAN-IFRA Executive News Service briefing, which comes to me with news of the business in English, German, French and Spanish. Those guys at WAN-IFRA manage to get updated and to keep the rest of us current as well.

Monday’s briefing was packed with many items of interest, but there were three that I found noteworthy, as they are excellent testimony to the state of newspapering—-or should we say the media——in these challenging times of transition, where not only are audiences making choices about how to get their information, but, we in the industry find ourselves seeking ways to serve that audience better.

Here are the three items of interest from the WAN-IFRA Executive News Service:

- Prisa’s El Pais opens newsroom in Mexico City to strengthen America’s coverage
http://www.portada-online.com/article.aspx?aid=9089

First paragraph: El Pais, the daily newspaper and website owned by Grupo Prisa, has opened a newsroom in Mexico City, Prisa owned Spanish financial daily Cinco Dias reports. The newsroom will work on the El Pais.com night edition, taking advantage of the time lag between Mexico and Spain, as well as to strengthen the America’s coverage.
My take: El Pais is, without a doubt, one of the most respected Spanish-language newspapers in the world.  As a native speaker of Spanish, I include El Pais as a very important part of my daily media consumption diet, sort of like a good multi vitamin dose all in one package.  It is especially good in its coverage of Latin America, and this is great news that it will now expand such coverage by having a beefed up base in Mexico City.  I always say that if I read The New York Times and El Pais, I have satisfied almost all of my media needs.  Indeed, I now read both of these marvelous newspapers on my iPad, a convenient way to take them with me everywhere, or, better yet, to wake up to them wherever in the world I am.  The Sunday edition of both the Times and El Pais are robust in their offerings, diverse, and fulfill the information/feature requirements of the most demanding audience.

- Is the International Herald Tribune about to breathe its last?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/22/international-herald-tribune-breathe-last

First paragraph: The International Herald Tribune isn’t what it was, to be sure: it’s the kind of history-steeped publication that can never escape its romanticised past (featuring, among other things, Jean Seberg in a memorable T-shirt). But will there be an IHT to grow sentimental over much longer? The New York Times, which owns it now, is progressively putting its outposts of empire up for sale. A majority stake in the Boston Red Sox, a regional paper group, the Boston Globe? Two gone already – and offers for the Globe clearly welcome.

My take: This would be sad news, indeed, if the International Herald Tribune were to disappear if a buyer does not appear.  However, it is true that the IHT has lost some of its former luster.  For years, the IHT has been my companion in travels across the world. In the days before the iPad I remember making a trip to the hotel’s concierge as early as 6 am, to make sure I got my hard copy of this much respected of newspapers.  The iconic IHT has appeared in films, and may have inspired at least one novel, The Imperfectionists, by Tom Rachman.  Lately, however, as today for example, I find that a large amount of the content that appears in the printed edition I have already read the night before in the New York Times’ iPad edition.  However, I still think that the IHT model for the printed newspaper is a winner: one section, all the content easily accessible and coexisting well without the traditional sectionalizing separators, and allowing the reader to get through the “newspaper reading” experience quickly and efficiently.  Whatever happens to the IHT, I hope that publishers take a second look at the model, because it is one that may work for regional newspapers globally.  The IHT editors have managed to make their one section newspaper a winner.  It is my hope that its format can find a new way of presenting information and analysis, and avoiding the heavy repetition of the Times that now plagues it.

- Australia: The Australian beefs up business, economics
http://panpa.org.au/2012/01/23/the-australian-beefs-up-business-economics/

First paragraph: Seven new editorial appointments will strengthen The Australian’s coverage of national issues, the national broadsheet announced over the weekend.

My take:  One of the things I learned while visiting Australia last October was the fact that Australians still read their newspapers with gusto.  The Australian is a brassy broadsheet and obviously proud of it.  The beefing up of its various departments, as seen above, indicates that the newspaper is investing in national and business coverage and looking towards storytelling as the key.

If interested in receiving the WAN-IFRA Executive News Service briefing, here is the contact:
 executivenews@wan-ifra.org

TheMarioBlog post #932

Update #2: Vienna, Austria, Monday, Jan. 23, 13:54

TAKEAWAY: Apple obviously wants to create good reading habits on its extremely popular tablet, the iPad, and it wants to do it through textbooks, allowing a generation that is already quite familiar with that platform, to study and to learn from it, via textbooks.

Last week Apple made a three-part announcement introducing a new version of iBooks that enables great-looking interactive textbooks; a new Mac app called iBooks Author that promises to make it much easier to organize and publish ebooks; and a new iTunes U app that makes it easier for universities and schools to create and distribute an entire course’s worth of material, from lecture videos to readings to assignments.

This is all exciting news, and another reason for someone in my age group to wonder if he were born too early. Indeed, seeing video demos of how textbooks come alive, I imagine that learning is going to become all that much more exciting, not to mention school backpacks getting definitely lighter to carry.

I’m excited by the potential of these Multi-Touch Textbooks and can’t wait to explore them in my own work.

I also see that a generation of students who read and interacted with books on their iPads is more likely to relate to the platform for all future information consumption, something for media publishers to keep in mind.

For the moment, however, I applaud the idea presented in a Nieman Lab piece by Joshua Benton, in which he anticipates how newspaper publishers may take advantage of what Apple offers for book publishing:

What are the ebooks already lurking inside the heart of the newsroom, just waiting to be unlocked? Is it a compilation of all a newspaper’s restaurant reviews? A popular columnist’s collected works? A compendium of all the paper’s stories about the local high school football team, player profiles and game stories, full of big art? Several years’ worth of gardening columns, filtered to focus on what grows well in the local soil? A local band book/database that includes MP3 samples from each? An expanded version of the 100 Biggest Local Businesses section the biz desk puts out once a year? A detailed guide to the local public schools, aimed at people new to area?

Much to think about here.

I am thinking that, as I have downloaded the iBooks Author software this weekend, my practice “book” may be a compilation of The Best of TheMarioBlog, and I know it will be fun to revisit 900+ entries and try to do my own tutorials with texts and images already published here.

Here are some related links of interest:

350000 Textbooks Downloaded from Apple’s iBooks in Three Days
http://allthingsd.com/20120123/350000-textbooks-downloaded-from-apples-ibooks-in-three-days/?reflink=ATD_yahoo_ticker

iBooks Textbooks for iPad: There’s nothing textbook about them.
http://www.apple.com/education/ibooks-textbooks/

The day the bookshelf shook: Four lessons for news orgs from today’s Apple iBooks announcements http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/the-day-the-bookshelf-shook-four-lessons-for-news-orgs-from-todays-apple-ibooks-announcements/

Joe Zeff: iBooks 2, and What Happens Next
http://joezeffdesign.com/ibooks-2-and-what-happens-next/

It doesn’t take Cupertino to make textbooks interactive
http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/01/matthew-battles-it-doesnt-take-cupertino-to-make-textbooks-interactive/

Sorry, iBooks, paper books still win on specs
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/20/2720158/sorry-ibooks-paper-books-still-win-on-specs

Reed Reibstein’s tweets on iBooks Author typography
http://bit.ly/y05aRq http://bit.ly/y05aRq

TheMarioBlog post #931