It was 2012 and we at Garcia Media were invited to participate in a workshop in Charlotte to discuss how the 40 weekly titles of the American City Business Journal (ACBJ) could be streamlined and unified. A main centerpiece of those early discussions: what’s the role of print in the modern media ecosystem?
The team at ACBJ, working closely with Garcia Media, examined what an elegant, analysis-focused publication might look like. This concept emphasized the “lean back” nature of print, which describes how readers are able to relax and disconnect from the more immediate digital platforms. Though the lean back concept was intriguing, it did not effectively represent the newsiness and urgency crucial to the best Business Journal reporting.
How could we create visual impact, deliver a good read (starting on page one), but move print beyond breaking news and into a more analytical mode?
One Step at a Time
First, however, we had to get publishers and editors on the same page to view the media quartet as a goal worth implementing in their newsrooms. Project Pinstripe was born.
With it, the need for a creative director, a visual sheriff so to speak, who would guide the design process, establish a sense of continuity for the brand and the key elements of the design: typography, story structures, grids and color palettes.
Enter Jon Wile, fresh from The Washington Post, and a tireless creative director who manages to oversee how 40 weeklies uphold the design principles, offering critiques, lots of praise and constant training along the way.
This year SND has rewarded those efforts in grand style, with 15 awards that tell the story of a fast and vigorous design evolution.
“This is the highest total in ACBJ history and more than doubles what we won last year,” says Jon.
“We’ve put in a lot of work over the past two and half years, not only with redesigning 40 papers but through a lot of behind the scenes work building visual cultures and hiring amazing designers. It’s an honor to be recognized by the Society and our design peers, and hopefully 2015 will be an even stronger year at American City.”
ACBJ Chief Content Officer Emory Thomas sees the awards as a plus for print:
I'm particularly proud that at a time when ACBJ has roughly tripled its digital audience metrics, we've also elevated our print product to new heights. We've added many dimensions to our storytelling, not the least of which is highly sophisticated design.
Taking a look at the winners
Papers that won were: San Francisco Business Times (8), Washington Business Journal (3), Puget Sound Business Journal (3), Atlanta Business Chronicle (1).
Now that we have congratulated the folks at ACBJ, we want to show some of the winning pages, and you will see that these are great examples of storytelling/design moving hand in hand.
Washington Business Journal
ACA Survival Guide: This won in Category 3 (News Design – Business Pages) for the cover and inside pages
List pages: This won in Category 9 (Special Coverage – Single Subject) as a portfolio of expanded List pages
San Francisco Business Journal
Baseball & Beyond: This won in Category 3 (News Design – Inside Pages) and Category 4 (Breaking News). It’s a 2-page poster comparing SF to Kansas City as a World Series preview
Dolls Kill: This special section won in Category 3 (News Design – Business Pages) for the cover and selected inside pages. This was a special section focused around the Top Private Companies in the Bay Area
More about ACBJ and Project Pinstripe
https://garciamedia.com/projects/american_city_business_journals
https://garciamedia.com/blog/lessons_learned_from_silicon_valley_and_a_look_at_some_details_of_svbj