[print] You Can't Expect A Redesign Rollout Without a Memorable Glitch

3395.

The rollout of the new re-re-redesigned The Oregonian was pointed out here two missives back. And it's not a bad thing.

But the redesigns of The O haven't been without their oopsies. Here's a highly amusing one. The fact that involves the comics page is sheerest coincidence.

Peep, if you will:

On the left, the section for Thursday, October 6th. On the right, Wednesday, October 5th. There is one difference: Thursday's section is headed Puzzles, whereas Wednesdays is headed Puzzles & Comics. 

But that's it. That's the only difference. Thursday's content is the exact same thing as Wednesdays.
Check the detail here. Wednesday's:

vice Thursday's:

The downside is, you've seen it all before; but that's the upside too, as you already know how to do the puzzles, you know how the comics turn out, and if your horoscope was splendid on Wednesday, well, Thursday's going to be just as good. 

And so that goes.

[print] The New New Oregonian Front Page, In The Flesh

3393.

Saturday was our weekly sojourn to that bastion of a democratically informed public, the Mighty MultCoLib, and I finally got my chance to lay my meat-peepers on the real thing, and get an idea of how visually impressive, the new new The Oregonian design is.

Here, on the table in front of me, the paper:

A thing that was merely a protoype a few days ago is now a thing that's a thing. It's still a tabloid thing, though; one feature of the re-design is certainly not a return to broadsheet-ish.

The impression one gets is not so much that of a newspaper as some sort of hybrid between a newspaper and a magazine.

The modified blackletter O which serves as the "Oregonian Media Group"''s logo has the pride of place on the page, in the upper left-hand corner, where most of us really enter a page. That's smart; if you think of the page as a battlefield, that's where the invader (your reader) will make their landing. This also sets up a natural idea of grid, espeically the way they've sliced off the O on the right, giving a hard line with which to define a visual column and to draw the eye right down to where an important story could be. The bottom of the O extended left could also be a visual boundary, but somewhat of a weaker one.

The name of the publication, always a good thing to have, still plays but a supporting role in the layout.

Here, the O not only defines a natural visual progression from the top left down but the top left to the right across the top of the page, where a couple of notable interior news stories are called out.

The foliage photo in the middle of the page is allowed to break out of its bounds and overlap the big O, providing a bit of visual iconoclasm that has the result of drawing the eye into the one direction that the big O in the corner does not directly encourage. This space, already defined by the trend of the big graphic to pull the eye along the top and down the side, is ideal for a bit of color. In this case, a brief seasonal word about Portland's Hoyt Aboretum as a blandishment to visit, along with hours of operation and encouragement to visit online sources where more information can be found about the place, as well as online links to more images.

Where's the front-page index, you say? Right here, at the bottom, almost invisible.

The use of the fonts, Tiempos and Guardian Egyptian, are appropriate, but like the front-page index, the bylines and slug lines have also been rendered nearly invisible. I'd punch that up just a little. And I've noticed the type in the headline about the Arboretum, which is one I don't recognize and don't remember seeing it announced, is for subject headings in many of the stories. It scans well and has a genteel feel to it.

My verdict? Since The Oregonian has been going through it's changes the last few years, I've not been a fan. I don't get the idea of scaling the paper down to a tabloid size; thus robbed of the pleasure of not reading a broadsheet, the whole experience is a little less fun. I'm still making my peace with it. That is an ongoing project.

This redesign is, however, a solid idea. Reducing the O to a small box in the upper left was a change that was visually aggravating, and making the old masthead type even smaller broke my heart. A classic masthead like that is something you boast, not something you tuck away. So, even though the design fixation on the O is something that strikes me awkwardly, the way the design manifests it is an improvement, and the way it's put into service to catalyze the page layout here is sensible. It does bring a welcome sense of personality to the layout that the redesign lacked.

That was the message I read between the lines of the editor's blog post last week, and that's what's been accomplished. 

[pdx] Two More Reasons To Smile If You're A Portland Liberal Who Likes Print

3291.

Two things that have happened in the last week that should make you smile if you're liberal, a Portlander, into literature, or a liberal Portlander into literature (surprisingly, that's not all of us, campers).

The first thing is that The New Republic, the 102-year-old journal of liberal thought and opinion, is now essentially a Portland immigrant, but its mentor is a good one. Win McCormack, who ran the legendary Oregon Magazine back in the day and currently helms Tin House Press and is one of the greatest literary figures Oregon has produced latterly, bought TNR out of the hell of 'vertically digital integration' that Chris Hughes was moving it into. The Wall Street Journal reports:

When announcing his intention to sell the publication, Mr. Hughes said finding a sustainable business model for the magazine had proven elusive. But he says he believes that Messrs. McCormack and Fish are the right people to lead the publication forward.
“I had many conversations with qualified candidates, and of those I ultimately concluded that Win McCormack and Ham Fish are those stewards. Their backgrounds in journalism and progressive politics make them uniquely qualified to lead such a historic institution,” he said in a statement.

When you're looking to give a liberal magazine a proper home, going with an actual liberal is always the best way, I think it's axiomatic to say.

The other notable thing that should make every good liberal happy is that the Oregon Center for Public Policy is moving its office to the center of the big-time. I like saying that the OCPP are the policy geeks The Oregonian thinks they're talking to when they talk to the Cascade Policy Institute. That is to say, when Soylent News™ goes for some reasonable political voice, they think they've found it in CPI but, as usual, they're wrong about that.

This can only be good news for the OCPP, as Chuck Sheketoff's voice has been gaining much strength around here and of the two big voices, OCPP is much much more on the side of working Oregonians of all types and those of us who think we're a community rather than those of us who see the Oregon economy as some sort of Thunderdome.

And if you'd like to work for OCPP and have the mad office skills, there's a position for Office Manager open: http://www.ocpp.org/2016/03/03/2016-office-manager/

[print] It's Always February in Lake Charles, Louisiana

3281.

Circulating on Facebook right now, courtesy of the auspices of one Lelan J. LaBorde, is this following picture:

There is a newspaper in Lake Charles, the Lake Charles American Press, and, apparently, at least one press run of the paper of March 1st, 2016 cheerfully wished Lake Charlesians good morning on a happy Tuesday, February 30th.

Truthfully, the jury's still out on this one. It's too early to say for sure if it's been 'shopped; after all, despite getting to just the edge of virality on Facebook it still hasn't broke through in the news or in trending topics there. As a matter of fact, the comment thread itself has a split of opinion, with more than one reader posting versions of the American Press's front page that say both Feb. 30 and March 1st. The suspect pictures don't seem to have been 'shopped, or if they are … we have a true pro on the job.

Check it out yourself. Here's the FB post: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1263148297034687&set=gm.480900548774338

In the meantime we wish everyone in Lake Charles, LA a happy Wednesday, Feb 31st.

[tech] Print: It's Sensual.

2960.Now, I can't afford a Kindle or whatever's au courant right now. But this article spells out, quite succinctly, why I'm not really craving one.

Turning the pages of a paper book is like leaving one footprint after another on the trail—there's a rhythm to it and a visible record of how far one has traveled. All these features not only make text in a paper book easily navigable, they also make it easier to form a coherent mental map of the text."

Paper books and magazines are always where it will be at for me.

Read (yes, it's electronic, savor the irony) all about it here: http://www.notechmagazine.com/2013/10/why-the-brain-prefers-to-read-on-paper.html

[print] The Gutenberg Wireless Media Player

2776.No monthly contracts? Infinite battery life, you say? Read in bright sunlight?



Well, hell's bells, sign me the tintype up!

[print] Physical Print On Demand At Powell's Books - Best Of Both Worlds?

2763.Just heard the news that Powell's Books is going to have something called an Espresso Book Machine installed at the flagship store.

You've heard of Print-on-Demand, of course. This machine - if I read the story right - will allow you to go online at Powell's Burnside store and have the book printed, finished, and bound for you right there.

And, of course, here's a video of an EBM



I'm conflicted about this, but on balance it might be a good thing. Simply going to Powell's, even if you don't have the money to buy anything just now, is just a invigorating experience; I hate the ideas that book stores may someday go away, if some of the more pessimistic ideas about print are correct. Bookstores are closing nationwide, and Borders, no matter what I thought of them, was a good place to get the mass market stuff.

The idea of combining POD with the Powell's experience has an intriguing side. As long as a book exists in a digital version, this suggests that the idea of a book ever truly being 'out of print' may become somewhat obsolete. That's always been POD's strength - keeping niche books available.

So, POD for books you can't find even at Powell's + Physically visting Powell's may just = a good thing, on the balance.

Via.

[pdx_liff] So Long, Just Out (1983-2011)

2735.Sad news for print publishing in the Portland area as Just Out, the alt-paper serving the LGBT community since 1983 has just now announced it has published its last.

It was a paper that could be enjoyed regardless of sexual orientation, however. It introduced my comic-readin' self to Dykes To Watch Out For, by the still-incredibly-underrated Alison Bechdel, whose soulful storytelling and rich-yet-simple style, reminiscent to me of ligne claire, told real, authentic human stories.

I suspect that the hole the loss of this media leaves in some lives will be larger than this, however.

[writing] Ten Things You Can Do If You Love A Writer

2171.I'm a fan of the graphic arts, but I love type which means I love books.

Is a friend or loved one a writer? Here, via twitter and Eileen Flanagan are ten things you can do to support them. They're all realistic, thoughful, and deeply affectionate.

http://www.eileenflanagan.com/blog/2009/7/24/if-you-love-a-writer.html

Technorati Tags: writing, writers

[print tech] I May Not Be Rich, But My Black Is

2153.I got a tipoff to a great article today about three sins in print design, and they're good things to remember.

They reduce down to three things they even teach you in Community College design school, they are that basic. they are, in order: Designing in RGB rather than CMYK; using black rather than "rich" black; and not using 300 dpi images in designs meant for print.

The first and last can make up an article all on thier own. But the second really caught my attention, because I also have a love of words that make things that don't necessarily happen together stick in the mind. Though the idea of "rich" black should stick in every print designer's mind.

Okay, enough circumlocution, and besides, what non-designer readers might want to know is, just what is rich black (disposing of the quote marks hereinafter)? It's pretty much what it suggests it is: black with a little "something extra".

Color print (other than spot printing) involves using the four so-called process colors cyan (C), magenta (M), yellow (Y) and black (K) to create the colors you see on the final product. Nothing is perfect, so CMYK can't produce every color you find in nature, but the gamut (a color theorist term for the range of possible colors that can be produced) is wide and useful enough that you'll never run up against a wall. Since inks aren't perfect, then black isn't perfectly black. You have to give it a little help. How? By adding one of the C, M, or Y inks.

On the left, true black @ K=100, On the right, rich black at C=90,
M=60, Y=30, and K=100. Inspired by the linked article.

Long ago, some wag said you can never be too rich or too thin. In the CMYK model, that's only half right: as you can see, you can indeed be too thin. True black ink, printed at 100%, may seem black, but when put up against rich black, it seems gray. A very dark gray, to be sure, but unmistakably gray. You amp up that black by throwing in a bit of one, two, or three of the other process colors.

Amusingly (and perhaps predictably) there is more than one opinion as to what constitutes a good rich black. One of the commenters in the linked article, Darren, put it in a way that's both interesting, has a clear grounding in color theory, and is easily rememberable:

I am a prepress technician and a true rich black or super black is 100% K and 40% Cyan for a cool black or 40% Magenta for a warm black. Don’t use any other percentage combos as they cause problems for the printer. Also don’t use a rich black for any text under 20pts (printers hate that). And if you do any of the above most printers will convert your pdf to the percentages I have above. Only use it for large black areas and text over 20pts.

And that's another thing: rich black isn't ideal for every part of the application. True black is typically adequate for small black areas and type you're going to be reading; the more ink you use, the more saturated the paper is going to become, which has the unfortunate tendency of munging up the works.

But if a real good black is part of the overall design scheme, you'll want to remember to use rich black. Black is a powerful color, and if you're looking to make an impact with that design, you'll want it to crackle and pop, and if you take the edge off your black, the pop just won't be as large.

Technorati Tags: CMYK, Process Color, 4-color process, rich black, color design