Rebecca Ruhlman Designs Welcome to the drafting table of RARDesigns. A full-service media design firm.
Good week y’all.
So, the new year is upon us, and that means news bits for all! This time I decided to get of my mopey seat and do a little media/design review.
Late night tumble
NBC’s backwards move of cheapening prime-time has finally ended – we hope. The companies plan to cut back costs by replacing expensive scripted dramas with the far less expensive Jay Leno show has been a miserable failure. In a time when broadcast television is dying as fast as the local newspaper, the third-place network had hoped that Conan could hold onto Leno’s older demographics while bringing in a younger audience, while Leno could provide an easy lead in for local affiliates’ newscasts. He continually lost out to reruns of CSI: Miami. Conan couldn’t hold older viewers who found his sophomoric antics tiring and his toned-down jokes soon alienated other audiences (Conando aside, I love Canando, his reliance on cheap tranny jokes got old really fast.) This left the door wide open for Letterman to take over with his startling confessions of infidelity and being blackmailed.
Now it seems that after being double burned by NBC, leno will regain his original seat and Conan may be headed to Fox. Who I really feel sorry for in Jimmy Fallon. His show started out really rocky, but seemed to be just getting it’s sea-legs. Fallon’s show really capitalized on the internet and other cross promotional tie-ins with Roots crew guest artists, his random sponsored games and twitter engagement. Plus, eventhough he is not the best informed at times, he seems to actually listen to his guests. Unlike the other two on NBC’s bill. I can’t tell you how many times during an interview pitch I’ve heard Conan say something to the guest about how the segment was going. Come on, I know that the only reason most of these stars are even on these shows are to hock some movie they did a year ago. But, the format under both Leno and Conan reeks of Bill Mays shouting at you during a bad infommercial.
Quite frankly, since the digital broadcast switchover, I have not been able to use my TV. Yes, I bought the silly little box, but it actually eliminated almost all of my available channels except Telemundo and a sometimes fox affiliate. Not being able to afford exorbitant cable rates, I moved perminantly to my free community WiFi. Sadly, the digital push mandated by congress may have been the last nail broadcast’s coffin. Thus, killing the most common access point for local news. For journalism, and I’m arguing for democracy to succeed, we need to find a way to preserve an economically soluible form of objective reporting. Is NPR be the last hope for journalism?
Have I mentioned that I LOVE cheese? I mean love it. In a way that may be seen as inappropriate at times.
Anyway about a year or so ago, a friend and I where deep in discussion about our mutual admiration of said aged bovine lactations. After about a half-hour of “gouda” conversation (okay, I promise the puns will stop soon) we started formulating plans for a publishing empire built around the gastronomic delicacy. Our Cheese Monger Monthly plans where to explore the business and complexities of this market of independent producers and aficianados.
Chees-a-holics unite
Well, guess what? They totally beat us at our own game. And I must say, this Massachusetts based magazine seems to have nailed it. Their print publication is beautifully laid out on good stock and their website has enough independent content to be its own destination. They walk a fine line between enthusiast and professional which may be hard to sustain over long term if they lean too heavy on either market segment. I’m thinking of ID whom just folded shop.
Anyway, kudos and a little *wink*, *wink*,*nudge*, *nudge* to the editors just in case they’re looking for a web/print designer.
I’ve been embroiled an age-old struggle. Clients that want every bell and whistle stuck on their webpage and actually designing something nice. As magazines are heading full-force into digital there is this want to attract advertisers and squeeze every dollar one can out of them. Most often the case this is done by dazzling the advertiser with the latest animated, expanding, peeling video Flash or javascript app. available. While cool in limited amounts a whole page of these little program-lets quickly bog down a site and cause eye-bleeding epileptic fits. (There is a reason why, while I want to show all my capabilites on this site, I keep most of it behind Jquery tabs.)
It just becomes an aggravating cluster-fuck of information. The ads are strewn willy-nilly anywhere they can sell page space. And if you’re one of those people that read with your mouse, the ads pop and fly across the content making it even harder.
Also, there is absolutely no hierarchy to content. Everything is just dumped into the same well. Sidebar elements too are scattered about with navigation,ads and secondary/supplemental content on both sides. It hurts to even try and read.
On the other hand, take The Daily Beast.
Headed by former Vanity Fair Grand Dame, Tina Brown, The Beast has easily become the most stylish site on the net. They have a visually centered hierarchy that leads the eye to their hand-curated content rather than to a set of distracting blinking boxes. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t have an ad model. They have a number of innovative, sophisticated sales units that seemlessly blend with content. Plus,they have webpages with text wrap! My God, could they be finally bringing magazine design to the internet? One could only hope. The bells and whistles are there, but they blend with the magazine elegantly as opposed to the slap-dash manner most print-to-web publications seem to go.
Has the industry
Speaking of beasts, the Murdochs may not be the complete satanic destroyers of journalism and decency as once suspected.
“I am by no means alone within the family or the company in being ashamed and sickened by Roger Ailes’ horrendous and sustained disregard of the journalistic standards that News Corporation, its founder and every other global media business aspires to,” Freud told the Times.
Seems that Roger Ailes, the shaven walrus and Republican tactician in charge of Fox News, has lost the confidence of Rupert’s heirs. This as the aged media-mogul desperately tries to find a way to make his other money-loosing properties, including his bastardized and castrated Wall Street Journal, payoff online.
Could this mean insurrection at the propaganda machine? Could marketable, legitimate journalism be back on the menu?
Only time will tell.
Tags: cheese, Conan, crn, daily beast, Design, Fox, insurrection, jimmy fallon, Journalism, Media, murdoch, nbc, tina brown, webdesign
I thought the Conan show was less of a letdown than when Letterman left NBC, but the whole thing is stinky business. I can’t believe they’re putting Leno back on. I liked Jimmy Fallon and The Roots too!
Seriously, I would stab people to work at a cheese magazine. Could you imagine? The answer to every work-related request would be, “for cheese? Yes!”"
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Wow, I like your blog !
haha, Leno is so crazy! I love him.