No. 9: Design, management tips
If this issue were a Jeopardy category, Alex Trebek would call it “potpourri.”
Posting your best page to the blog would be a great way to introduce yourself and your work to everyone else!)
I also have uploaded another course to the Courses page. This one covers some basic design principles that come from the gestalt principles of visual perception. I believe that understanding a bit about how we see can improve our presentation of visual information. The enrollment key is: freecourse. You’ll need to enter that to view the courses.
Another of my latest videos is about how to pre-format your stories in Word for easy placement in InDesign. It’s a real time-saving issue, and I am very interested in time management and collaboration solutions for the newsroom.
I ran across a web site (http://www.37signals.com) that offers a couple of different web-based programs that I think have great potential for speeding up and/or smoothing out news flow and communication among reporters, photographers and editors. For photo and story assignments, for instance.
You can try these programs with 1-4 people free. If you like the programs and want the fully functional version, the monthly fee is very small. I would check them out to see if they would help your workflow.
Another slick little program is SlimTimer, which you can use to track how much time you spend on various tasks during the week. I use it to keep track of how much time I am spending on a client project, but it is also a good way to catch “time leaks” that interfere with your getting things done. I found lots of wasted minutes using it. It’s free at http://slimtimer.com. Disclaimer: I am not connected to either site in any way.
I am busily putting together a few more videos this weekend, and I hope to have some helpful Word docs posted as well. So keep checking back and spread the word about News Design School.
That’s it for now. The high holidays are approaching so I would be remiss if I didn’t remind you of the News Design School shop (http://www.cafepress.com/nds_shop). Check out our gift items, especially our “Hark the Herald-Tribune sings” holiday cards!