Crystal-clear communication; a graphic 'before and after' shows why effective communication depends on a strong partnership of design and editorial

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Dec, 1985 by Jan V. White

Word-oriented people don't feel confident of their judgments about anything but words. Their training has seldom inspired the insight that their words must have physical form before the reader can see them and absorb them. Although printed communication of thoughts cannot exist except by the transformation of invisible ideas into visual signals, editors have traditionally relegated that task to design specialists.

That's splendid for designers: It makes jobs. It is not quite so splendid for writers, or--what is more serious--for the product of the combined labors of the designers and writers. Until the word-people learn to make the most of what the visual-people can provide them, there will continue to be a communication might-have-been.

By the same token, unless the visual-people learn to put their art at the world-people's disposal, there will invetably by a journalistic might-have-been, even if it wins awards for prettiness.

To bridge this chasm of misunderstanding and professional hostility, we must debunk the editors' misplaced feelings of artistic inferiority as well as the designers' partronizing view of the editor as unprinciple Philistine. These unfortunate concepts must be replaced with facts: 1) The wordsmith is indeed capable of judging intelligently, if that judgment is based on substantive criteria. 2) The designer is the editor's partner in applying his skills to the purposes set by the editor. 3) Designer and editor can't do without each other, so they might as well work together toward the common good.

Step 1:

Understanding the medium

To produce a publication that communicates effectively, you have to balance the elements that combine in its makeup:

* The message, the ideas, the contents.

* The flavor of the language in which the message, ideas and contents are couched.

* The images through which they can be transmitted.

* The sequencing of ideas.

* The relative scale of the elements to one another

* The contrasts of size, texture, boldness.

* The enlivening created by unexpected suprises.

* The character and mood created by the typeface used.

* The planned repetition of impressions to create a unified product.

* The size, shape, color, texture of the physical materials used.

* The perceived quality of the object in the hand.

These elements and many more need to be orchestrated into a visually unified and intellectually consistent whole. That's what publication design is about--and it has very little to do with "art." It has everything to do with logic--cold, hardheaded, analytical judgment based on the objective understanding of what the story is about--not on some subjective hunch about beauty, fashion or clever mise en page.

Step 2:

Designing to help the story

Design in this context exists to help catapult ideas off the page and into the reader's mind--not as something the designer plans for the portfolio. It is a tool with which to manupulate the raw materials--space, words in type, illustrations, color, pattern, rhythm, paper and ink, and the inherent ideas--in such a way that they combine to say something. If design is fulfilling its potential, then it manages to say what needs to be said clearly.

Good design explains at first glance the reason for publishing the story. Prettiness (however that may be interpreted) is a happy by-product, if it happens. It is not the goal. The goal is clarity of communication, exploiting every aspect of available material to fascinate and involve the viewers and turn them into readers. That's how ideas are communicated. And word-people are, indeed, capable of making such value judgments once they see that the designer's cleverness and subtlety are exploited for the story.

Step 3: Knowing your mind

Laying out a story does not happen by inspiration, "linkin," or any other subjective whim on anyone's part. It evolves, rather, out of the material's own substance, given direction by the editor. The underlying reason for the significance of the editorial content to the readership is what the editor must point out to the designer, so it can be spotlighted in the page arrangement.

Yes, this implies using visual emphasis (by size, contrast, placement, color, isolation, etc.). That, in turn, implies that the editor must make up his mind in order to give the requisite leadership. Without this editorial direction, the designer has to fill the vacuum with personal (mis-)interpretation. And that often leads to anger, frustration, disaster.

To create sense-making stories, the editor and designer must meld their talents and, as a team, define and articulate what they want to say. Once they know that, then inventing a laguage (visual and verbal) becomes easy. They can organize the flow of the argument, choose the best words, pick or invent the most telling visuals, and assemble them all into page arrangements that reflect and express the thrust of their message.

Step 4:

Packaging the product

Although every publication is worked on in segments (by story, page, section), it is not perceived that way by the recipient. The impression of value is transmitted by the excellence of the elements themselves, of course; but equally crucial to the success of the publication as continuing periodical product is the need for the recipient to remember it as an entity. It must exude its own specialness from every page carrying edtorial matter. To do that, it needs to have an underlying graphic unity based on discipline and logic.