Here is a definition of opacity, according to Webster’s Dictionary :

1.	The state of being opaque; the quality of a body which renders it impervious to the rays of light; want of transparency; opaqueness.

That is exactly what happened when The New York Times published a very special supplement, titled Overlooked, which, in fact, relates a story of omission: a new series that presents obituaries for historically significant women who did not receive them when they died. I assume that this is the first of what may be many future such supplements from the Times, admitting a bit of mea culpa for ignoring these worthy of acclaim women in its famous obituaries.

As explained by the Times editors:

Since Overlooked, which debuted Wednesday online, seeks to make amends for a systemic, gendered injustice, spotlighting one particular woman on the cover seemed inappropriate.

The cover also had to balance the excitement of long-delayed visibility with the sobriety of an obituary.

What we landed on took the unusual step of printing most of the design on the second page, which houses a table of contents and portraits of all 12 women in the section.

The first page was left mostly blank to allow the images on the next page to bleed through the newsprint onto the cover, leveraging an ordinarily restrictive condition of the medium: It’s so thin that it’s semitransparent.

Take a look at this unusual cover:

The Times printed a faint mirror image of each portrait on the cover to bolster what bleeds through. Then, as readers turn the page, the portraits undergo an “interactive” transformation that represents the mission of the section: rendering overlooked women visible.

Very clever, indeed, a bit ghostly, too, which is appropriate for the content.

Here is the story:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/insider/overlooked-women-cover-design.html

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