Visual Journalism

I have studied graphic design at several levels and am fascinated by excellent, executions of it. And am fully willing to admit that my abilities do not – yet – match my aspirations. So when I came across this explanation of how the BBC went through their redesign process for the web, I was entranced for a few moments.

I love the grid, I want to live in that grid. Even if it’s only so that I can step across it and mess it up from time to time.

Here they come – everyone’s got a top 10 list this time of the year. Time magazine has posted what they think are the top magazine covers of the year … and not one of them is their own. (Personally, I love the elegant simplicity of their number three choice. But I am a monochromatic kind of guy.)

Yes, not photojournalism.

Yes, not video journalism.

Yes, not multimedia journalism.

Yes, not journalism.

But cool, nonetheless – the best bookcovers of 2009.

(Thanks to Khoi Vinh for the link.)

There are sites like this all over the place for all sorts of industries, but this once made me laugh out loud a few times – Clients from Hell is a place for graphic designers to complain about, well, their clients. Stick it in your RSS reader, a good Saturday morning read.

Thanks to Rob Haggart from A Photo Editor for the link.

One of several interests about which I know nowhere near enough … the New York Times talks about typographical errors. (My grad school graphics professor will be proud, I hope, to know I still study this stuff.

Okay, it’s a bit geeky … but this video by Peter Belanger of how a MacWorld magazine cover gets shot, edited and designed is kind of cool. And you thought the stop, pan, blur assignment took a lot of time …

So says Khoi Vinh in this New York Review of Ideas story, “Black, White and Read Online.” Can user interface design save journalism?

The New York Times‘ Lens blog has a selection of images up by Michael Wolf of Chicago architecture – and the visual formations are stunningly cool (particularly the last frame). There’s even a legal note appended to the piece that talks about privacy issues – something we as journalists deal with a lot.

So asks Jacek Utko at this year’s TED conference.

It’s not a typo – it’s Little Red Riding Hood done as a Flash infographic.