Company picnic
Photo / Jul. 22, 2011
More Leica M9 fun — this time at the company picnic at Alex’s beautiful new country estate in The Plains.
Considering the Business Journal of the future
Design, Other / Jul. 1, 2011
I was chatting with my friend Beth who works in our corporate office last week and she mentioned that the big wigs were starting to talk about the sorry state of design at many of our papers. “We keep telling people this isn’t your father’s Business Journal, but they look like your father’s Business Journal,” was her comment. But unifying the look of 40 papers is no small feat, especially when you consider that our market sizes range from Birmingham small to San Francisco big.
So I was thinking about fresh looks and our ever-present art problems (the biggest being that the bigger the story, the less likely it is to have any art whatsoever) and realized that the Portuguese newspaper i had kinda solved both issues. Above is a couple of rough concepts that use i‘s modular blocks of big type, but scaled to a 54″ web and with a more conservative, “adult” color palette.
Now this, I guarantee you, is not the Business Journal of the future because they would never rebrand the papers to Biz (though everything seems to bear some form of that name: BizJournals.com, BizLeads, BizSmarts, etc.) It also lacks a certain simple sophistication that I would prefer to see, but it would be pretty replicable across all our markets. Eh. Anyway, just a thought.
Outstanding Directors Awards
Design / Jun. 24, 2011
The Outstanding Directors Awards is the latest addition to the Business Journal’s “signature” events. The plan is for a glitzy black tie EoY-style event in late November.
Women Who Mean Business
Design / Jun. 23, 2011
The Women Who Mean Business creative has always feature a picture of a woman (or multiple women) — and what a pain. She couldn’t be old or young or pretty or ugly or frumpy or sexy. Basically she had to be the most boring stock woman in existence. Well this year I said no more. Women who mean business are bright yellow watercolor splotches!
BizSmarts Expo logo
Design / Jun. 17, 2011
Last year’s small business expo wasn’t the Business Journal’s finest hour, so this year it’s getting a complete makeover from the program format down to the name. This year’s event is going to rock — especially with the addition of the two Disney Institute workshops. You can get details and register at BizSmartsExpo.com.
A say on pay
Design / Jun. 10, 2011
National airport flight exemptions
Design / Apr. 1, 2011
I brought a little BusinessWeek into this graphic showing the destinations and number of flights that are currently exempt from National airport’s 1,250-mile limit.
Washington Business Journal redesign
Design / Apr. 9, 2010
Almost a year and a half in the making, this was the largest redesign WBJ has done in a long while, but it was almost even bigger. Plans to go to a five-column format, a smaller web width and heavier, whiter paper died about a year into the process. And despite careful planning, Page 1 and the nameplate were changed less than a week before launch thanks to The Washington Post’s earlier-than-expected launch of Capital Business. While I’m largely pleased with the results, Page 1 still feels a little like a frankenstein project.
Inside pages were opened up slightly, making way for Guardian and Publico-style layouts with large art.
Section fronts became section spreads to allow a single block of editorial going across the spread and dedicated non-full page ad space.
The use of color changed significantly too. The paper is now 100 percent color and the color palette is strong and bright.
The Opinion pages are the only pages that deviate from the four column grid — it’s actually five with a two-on-three staff column in the center.
Typefaces used are Publico Headline, Publico Text, Guardian Sans and Guardian Text Sans — all available from my pal Christian Schwartz over at Commercial Type.