Jacek Utko…Designs to save Newspaper
Can the newspaper be saved? Could we have saved the P.I.? In my opinion I agree with Jacek Utko that the fate of the newspaper is bleak at best. Redesigning Jacek’s newspaper made a huge difference in how aesthetically pleasing it was. And its rising readership was proof of that. Having said that I can only assume that today its readership has decreased. There are to many free local tabloid types in competition with a purchased paper.
The people I know who still get the newspaper delivered to their front porch, very few indeed, skim thru headlines, look at the ads and end up at the crossword puzzle. What do all these have in common? They all have visual design aspects to draw us in and captivate our attention. If the headlines don’t grab us we don’t go any further. Everybody is so busy and the news is so instantiations and available at the click of a mouse button nobody has to wait to get a big newspaper that, depending on which one you get, is totally bias in one direction or another. With the Internet you have access to multiple points of view.
I’ve noticed a trend just in my own mailbox. For example, “The Redmond Reporter” is a local tabloid that has lots of visuals and just enough information to keep me informed about what is going on in my community. You can scan and read the whole paper standing at the kitchen counter.
I believe the basic newspaper, as we know it today will fade away but will be replaced with something different. The Internet may be our main source of national/global information but still locally we will have the newspaper like Jacek produced.
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