Many newsrooms around the globe dedicate generous human and monetary resources to the creation of new products. That is why this semester I have assigned my students in Multiplatform Design & Storytelling to create a product that they could pitch as an enhancement to a company’s existing offerings.

The students worked in teams of two and had to consider all aspects of the new product: content/storytelling, visuals and design, technical aspects and monetization efforts.

Anyone interested in additional information about these projects can contact me and/or the students directly. Their Twitter handles are given next to their names.

Today I am profiling three of the students’ projects.

Newsmark.

Helping you identify content to read later

Authors: Kourosh Houshmand ( @kourosh_housh) and Tiancheng (Harry) Zhang (@HarryZhangX)

Concept: “Never miss that story again,” is the motto for this project. The idea is to discover a story on the small screen, but then read it on the big screen. It is a news discovery app.

Take a look:

iPhone: https://marvelapp.com/8253d8h

iPad: https://marvelapp.com/c384c8e

What’s App and Subscriptions

Subscribe and chat

Authors: Gailie Darwich (@Gailie_Darwich) and Tiana Dong (@tianadong53)

Concept: Subscribe to your favorite publication via What’s App then you can enjoy reading the news and sharing it and chatting over it all at the same time. Trending and discovery features.

Take a look:

Chat and share an article

https://marvelapp.com/823d3aa

Easy Biz

Making sense of all that business news

Authors: Brian Pascus (@brianpascus) and Caleb Mutua(@CalMutua)

Concept: Making financial news easier to use. This new product links to The New York Times web page, allowing for clear explanations of business news terminology. It uses video and audio as alternative ways of providing the didactic elements that are the essence of Easy Biz.

Take a look:

https://marvelapp.com/30haad3

Coming tomorrow

More of my students’ new product ideas continued tomorrow with projects that involve Starbucks, Facebook, The Washington Post and Teen Vogue.

Society of News Design New York: Celebrating 40 years

The Society for News Design’s 40th Anniversary Workshop, Creative Conference and Awards Gala will be in New York City, March 22–24.

Workshop chair Tyson Evans, of The New York Times, and an army of volunteers are organizing three packed days of talks, training, networking and inspiration about the future (and past) of storytelling, visual journalism and news products across print and digital.

Speakers announced so far include Scott Stowell, proprietor of Open and winner of the National Design Award for Communication Design; Jennifer Daniel, of Google; John Maeda, of Automattic and visual journalists from The New York Times, Washington Post, Axios, Vice, ProPublica and more.

I am honored to be one of the speakers.

If you would like to attend what promises to be one of the best SND gatherings ever, please go here for more information:

https://nyc.snd.org