TAKEAWAY: Leroy Sylk, art director of Thailand’s The Nation reports that his newspaper has been threatened by protesters PLUS: Planning an iPad app for your publication; start with good information architecture strategies. The rest is the easy, fun part. ALSO:Apply for the Poynter conference, The Power of the Tablet, June 14-15. Final deadline extension May 26
As readers of this blog know, I have been in daily contact with The Nation’s art director, Leroy Sylk, who has been kind to send us pdfs of the pages produced during the past few days.
The city of Bangkok continues to be besieged by confrontations between protestors and the government, with no end in sight. Now, the protesters have allegedly threatened the newspapers, including The Nation.
Here’s Leroy’s report tonight Wednesday:
“……the protests have spread and now a curfew has been clamped over all of Bangkok. The Nation has been one of the targets of the anti-government protesters, so we had to rush off a few pages—just one section today—and scoot home before the protesters show up in force or before the curfew takes effect. Our page one has one massive photo (of thick smoke rising over parts of the city) and several short kickers/blurbs, but no text. The page 1 headline is huge, reading: FIERY ANARCHY. There was no time to write any story for page 1, we really had to rush. So the kickers will give readers the general story. Our back page is a photo page. Our lone English competitor isn’t even publishing for tomorrow—they too were threatened. Sadly, I didn’t even have time to save page 1 and post it on twitter or facebook as i usually do because we were told to get it done FAST and get the hell out—we had only 2 hours to bring out one section of 12 pages. So, please continue to pray peace descends on this lovely but unfortunate city.”
If you and your team are planning to develop an iPad app (or any other tablet, for that matter), your first stop has to be a good session on information architecture.
Start with the DNA of your newspaper or magazine: how can it be reflected on the tablet. After all, it is THAT which will make potential users come to you on the iPad. Search for this element of identity and translate it as well as you can.
But, remember, an iPad edition of your publication is NOT print, and it is not online, although it must echo elements of both.
Pretend, at the start, that you are gathering your team to start a new publication, one which does not exist in any other form: how would you create a tablet edition? What are the elements that tablets can offer, which you could not find in print or online editions? In my view, the tablet is made to be a companion with which one can relax, as we do with paper.
It does not have the sense of urgency that we attach to reading online, or the tediousness of it. After all, whatever focus groups or research we do these days, we hear that reading online is equated to work, while reading on paper is more of a leisure activity. In that sense, tablets are akin to print.
However, you must provide the visual enhancements that the tablet edition allows.
My tip from the trenches: Do a good planning session on information architecture before you do anything else. Visual dynamics are important on the tablet, but the design process itself must be heavily templated. You got it: the tablet relies on good storytelling and magnificent photographic choices for its impact. Nothing new here as far as I am concerned.
It will, however, required very sharp editors and photographers, something that is never in ample supply in many newsrooms.
TheMarioBlog post #558