In January 2009, Information Architects (iA) was invited to participate in a paid pitch for the print redesign of Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger.

iA is a user experience design agency that specializes in developing branded online strategies and user interfaces for the software and publishing industries. Based in Japan and Switzerland, the group has amassed an impressive portfolio, with clients such as Mozilla and Zeit Online.

Of the five agencies developing pitches, iA was the only one specializing in user experience. They had a unique perspective to offer, and they focused on issues of usability, readability, and cross-media connections. The result: a gorgeous print design that ignored most newspaper design rules while incorporating user experience design rules.

iA’s redesign included online strategies such as putting readers’ comments next to the related article and increasing scannability by making “print links” — blue keywords — in the articles. They took a creative gamble, but in the end, they lost to another agency.

Why am I sharing this “Story of a Beautiful Failure”? I found it intriguing for many reasons, but there are two lessons that I think are great takeaways for professional writers: (1) it’s not enough to do something great — you have to be able to communicate its greatness to others; and (2) this kind of thinking outside the traditional design box is what professional writers do.

The Importance of Communication
iA ultimately lost the pitch because they weren’t able to show their capability. They had this insight to share on the failure:

Sometimes passion is not enough. I felt that during the presentation my usual approach (”Speak the truth no matter what and let your passion guide you”) didn’t quite work, as speaking the truth I called the front page “start page” several times and used typical web designer lingo (”user” instead of “reader”, “page views”, “link” instead “key word”). Instead of showing that we can do it, I showed that we’re a full blood news site design agency.

iA failed their audience — the client — by not speaking their language. As professional writers, we have to be constantly aware of our audiences and their needs when communicating what we do and how we do it. Because whether you are presenting a creative design concept in a pitch or explaining your valuable experience in an interview, if you can’t communicate, you will fail.

Thinking Across Mediums
iA’s concept was to “use all knowledge from contemporary user experience design and translate it to paper”. They used a bigger font size with more leading, increased the size of images and graphics, and designed in a way that considered the importance of the content: important at top left, not as important at bottom right, and various column standards depending on news type. By thinking across mediums, iA was able to create a fresh design that was functional and aesthetically pleasing.

This is what professional writers do every day: consider the medium and the audience, and then create or adapt content in a way that communicates clearly. Knowing what the rules are and when to break them is essential.

Consider the current state of the newspaper industry. They continue to struggle with traditional media vs. new media and readership of print newspapers continues to decline. Many print newspapers have ceased publication altogether in favor of online-only publications. Much of the talk around saving the industry has been about adapting print to web, cutting production costs, and charging for content. But what about doing as iA did, and adapt online design practices to print?

There are many insights to take away from iA’s failure, so I encourage you to check out their entire concept and pitch. Kudos to iA for sharing their experience so we can all learn a lesson or two.

Tags: newspapers, print, user experience

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1, 2009 at 6:21 am and is filed under Design, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.