Posted by Tim Frank on January 24, 2010 at 10:38am
If your story is about something tangible and specific, shoot it. If the story is about concept or abstract idea, illustrate it.
How many of your publications would illustrate a story on rising airfare by sending a photographer to the airport? My paper had a strong tradition of documentary photography, so in the past, we would have done that as well. Here's an example:
The art here says that someone is going on a trip. Verrrrry exciting. It's not the photographer's fault. This was a lame assignment. While we should relate to the tragedy that this family is paying higher airfares, the page should really be telling us that WE will be paying higher airfares.
We've turned up the volume in general, but this recent page, illustrated by Chris Mihal, tries to get the point across more visually.
It's just about picking the best approach to get people to read the story and to immediately know what the story is about. We find we use illustrations a lot in Business because there are a lot of stories that are more abstract in nature. And we run a lot more useful, consumer oriented stories on the front page, so we run a lot more illustrations there as well.
My apologies if this is overly obvious, but a lot of papers still have misguided preconceptions, especially where non-visual managers are calling the shots. I once heard from a former editor, "We are a serious newspaper. That doesn't belong on the front page." When illustrations are the best choice, it's up to us to respectfully suggest otherwise.
Up next: No art? No problem.
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