I heart design!

Yes!

Design is definitely something I am most interested in, even though it isn’t necessarily the most journalistic aspect. I feel like a lot of times, we completely look over it, like it isn’t as important as the text or video or interview or whatever. But, in all honesty, what is the journalism if no one desires to look at it? I think design is basically step 1 in delivering the news.

I loved the “Not so Good Design Checklist” we looked at in class for websites. In this age of the Internet, a lot of sites are trying to do everything at once, and that is exactly what design should not be. It shouldn’t be crowded, flashy, or over-the-top obvious. It should be subtle; enough to be noticed and draw interest, but not overpower the content, whether that is a news story, an advertisement, or a blog.

Blogs are moving in as a new medium for information, but many still lack the good design elements and are filed with the bad. Look at Facebook vs. MySpace. Facebook is CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity that is), while the freedom of MySpace allows people to add color and pictures and writing and music and flashing icons. Obviously, I am not a member of MySpace. One look at those pages and I am completely confused. Our lives are confusing enough; do we really need to add dancing bananas to it?

Another example of good/bad design I see is in broadcast news. Ever travel somewhere and watch the news and feel like it is, well, amateur? I’m from St. Louis, so a bigger city obviously has a bigger news network, but whenever I travel to smaller cities (yes, even when I came here to Columbia), I notice the design of the news- their logo, graphics, music, set, etc. When it looks amateur, the reporters look amateur, thus the information looks amateur- you lose credibility.

As sad as it is, this world is all about sell, sell, sell. We can’t just deliver the news, we have to sell it. And since we can’t spin it to make it a ‘better’ story, we have to do something else, and that is attracting them with design.