Do we go conventional with the format or experimental?
Convention does one important thing, it means that people who are conventional will be fooled into reading it. But a contemporary dance crossword is pretty whack don't you think? So the content could be the craziness within the most conventional frame.
I also have the feeling that as our design skills are limited, attaining absolute convention will be difficult.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Thinking 'unconventionally' about the design doesn't nescessarily mean doing something which require special skills, nor to ask for more from readers. The result is just as likely to be something which raise interest even more, or facilitate reading/understanding/getting fired up.
ReplyDeleteIt can be fun to make stuff look conventional or dry or like real stuff from the rest of the world (specially if it's called Dude!) but it can more fun to do things wrong or turn them on their heads (but maybe more so if it's called The Vienna Herald or something... or not).
In practical terms this might mean to let a short paragraph, or just one word, fill and entire page sometimes. Or let a single issue one day be about just one thing. Or have one issue be set in really small type, vast amounts of text and information (and have magnifying glasses lying around wherever people are likely to pick up paper or sit and read). Maybe it feels silly or childish to work like that, or it just takes away time one would rather spend on creating content, but I for one would maybe be less inclined to scrutinize a publication which just looks friendly and nice for wild ideas.
one issue has way, way too much text which requires type to be really really small and so a bunch of cheap magnifying glasses need to be available, they're lying around). An issue could be set in a typeface that makes it look like Stalinist propaganda, or a fashion magazine, or like it was made by children. None of that technically difficult and I don't think any of it would make people less interested than something which just looks friendly, informative and gently entertaining.
I'm not sure. It's good to have a strict format when time is strict and you want content to get out. But I think also be open to what is possible. Nothing is stopping the thing from being insane and if there is a chance to, and it might just as well help what's written to get out more, then let it. Rather than just make it look nice.
Oops, sorry, messed up some in my text there, repeats. But you get the idea.
ReplyDelete