Here’s the scenario: You have a great story with no art. The editor is insistent that this story MUST be the centerpiece or the cover story, the most important story in the issue. You don’t have an illustrator on staff, and you have very little in the way of a budget for this type of thing. So, what’s the good designer to do?
Make something out of nothing.
Designers in every publication environment have all faced this challenge at least once, and likely countless times. In fact, this is how we often end up with those messy photomontages and illustrations that in an attempt to convey everything actually convey nothing at all.
This can be a very frustrating situation for designers because the responsibility of presentation and art direction ideas often fall on our shoulders. In secular newspapers, it always seems to be the business and technology sections that provide the biggest art direction challenges. I mean, really, how many times can you show a dollar bill to represent money or a computer to represent technology before your readers fall asleep over their paper?
But the obvious ideas and complicated illustrations for complicated topics do not always have to be the answer. On the contrary, simple is often much better, and a clever idea is often simpler than we may first think.
There are several exercises art directors and editors can practice to come up with simple presentation ideas. The first step in all this is understanding that the illustration doesn’t always have to represent every angle covered by the story. It’s often better to choose a single, powerful image to represent one of the key points, and then let a strong headline and summary explain other important facets of the story.
Of course, nailing the great idea for this single, sometimes-conceptual image can be extremely overwhelming if you try to take the whole story in at once. However, a carefully guided brainstorming session can often yield very exciting results. Follow this step-by-step exercise for more effective presentation.
STEP ONE; Get three to four designers and editors together for a few minutes to discuss the direction of the story. This may take a few minutes out of everyone’s day, but it’s worth it! Three heads are always better than one.
STEP TWO: Describe the story in 10 words or less and write it down. One of the best editor’s I know once told me if you can’t do this, your story has no focus.
STEP THREE: Pick out two or three key issues in that description to focus your illustration attention on. For example, if the story is about the Eucharistic Adoration, focus on Communion as one concept to illustrate.
STEP FOUR: Make a list of all the single words, phrases and simple objects that come to mind when thinking of this topic. For the Eucharist, that may be a chalice, cupped hands extended outward, wine, bread, etc.
STEP FIVE: Choose the single image that is most appropriate, find one, and then take a photo of it. Sometimes an appropriate backdrop may surround the object, – a chalice on an altar, for example – and sometimes, you’ll simply use the object alone on a plain background.
STEP SIX: Comb through your list of words and phrases, and begin to look for a headline. Remember that it’s okay if the image alone doesn’t tell the whole story because you’re going to marry it with a strong headline and summary that support it.
STEP SEVEN: Put the pieces together with the story and develop a design that’s clean, attractive and easy-to-follow. This may mean including glance boxes and other layers of information that will help the reader navigate and understand the information.
As designers, our job responsibilities go beyond making the pages of our publications look good. We must also work to simplify information for our readers and help them follow and understand the content through simple, clean presentation. The days of complicated Photoshop illustrations and montages are gone (thank heavens!), and new era of simple concepts and design styles has begun. Not only will this approach save you time, but it will also make the design process much easier, as the bulk of the work is done in the brainstorming stages as opposed to the moment a designer sits down to a blank computer screen.
ONLINE EXERCISE
Visit www.ronreason.com/personal/articles.html to take an interactive design quiz that tests your art direction skills. Click on “The Art of the Simple Idea” link.