Archived Posts by Matt Mansfield
Start-up lessons: A homicide site in DC
Friday, January 27th, 2012
What can you learn about design and development from a site about homicides? A lot, it turns out as we see in this dispatch in SND’s Year-Long Conversation about design.
Design lessons from 9/11
Friday, September 9th, 2011
What did you learn?
There was stunning photojournalism from the attacks. There were astounding information graphics. There was indelible design. As a visual journalist, what did you learn from 9/11? Share your story.
Roger Black on Ready-Media, templates and the future of design
Friday, July 23rd, 2010
When Roger Black and Eduardo Danilo launched Ready-Media this week—the template service for newspapers, magazines and, eventually, the Web—the announcement sent distress signals through the design community. SND talks with Black about what he had in mind when creating Ready-Media.
Inside the design process for NPR’s iPad app
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010
The NPR app, which has been in the top free downloads since the iPad came out, and a companion site optimized for the iPad feature clean design and a careful attention to usability details. Hear more about the prototyping process with NPR’s Paulo Lopez and David Wright Jr.
Two words about the new Apple tablet: Think different
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Steve Jobs will unveil something big on Wednesday morning. Early word — and there’s been much of it — is that Apple will reinvent the idea of portable computing with a new tablet that just might revolutionize publishing.
But if you’re worried about the tech specs and the price and the size of the thing and who will win the coveted phone contract (if there is one) and how the wireless will work and the millions of other rumors out there, you’re missing the point.
Apple thinks bigger.
It traffics in ideas.
Five questions: Amanda Zamora, multimedia editor
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Amanda Zamora left The Washington Post last year to be part of the start-up team that would launch The Huffington Post Investigative Fund. The independent nonprofit journalism venture, funded by various donors (including, of course, The Huffington Post, but also the Atlantic Philanthropies and the Knight Foundation) and based in Washington, D.C., is part of
Screen gems: Roger Fidler talks about e-readers and tablets
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
Fifteen years ago, Roger Fidler had a somewhat-prophetic vision for a thin electronic tablet. Now, as the publishing world scrambles to embrace e-readers and looks ahead to new devices and interaction models, we checked in with Fidler to reflect on missed opportunities and his predictions for what comes next.
Video: About that list of 25 moments…
Sunday, January 3rd, 2010
Explore the videos from 25 Influential Moments in News Design, the oral history of the Society at 25 as told by the founding generation of information design professionals — with thoughtful insights on what shaped the craft.
Mobile: Paying for functionality in news apps
Sunday, March 22nd, 2009
The RevenueTwoPointZero event happened on Saturday in Washington. This is the report from the mobile team. Our solutions for monetizing the iPhone are based on existing technology but an emerging audience. The current audience may be small, but it’s clearly growing. Mobile remains new, so it offers opportunities to pursue revenue strategies that may not
An effort to find new revenue models launches
Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
Next weekend, the Society will be part of a day-long event in Washington aimed at helping the struggling newspaper industry find revenue solutions in a few key areas. The belief is that design thinking can help frame the issue because those of us used to conceptualizing can make a fast round of prototypes that will
General competition: Here’s the final tally
Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
The final day of The Best of Newspaper Design™ general competition has come to a close. The judges did not award a Best of Show. Four gold medals were awarded: two to the National Post, and one each to The New York Times Magazine and Expresso (Lisbon). The unofficial* top 10 winners by number of awards are the Los Angeles Times, the National Post (Toronto), The New York Times and its magazines, The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, La Presse (Montreal), The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, the Boston Globe, Zaman (Istanbul), The National (Abu Dhabi), and three newspapers tied for No. 10: The Buffalo (N.Y.) News, the Chicago Tribune, and Clarin (Buenos Aires).
Meet the students
Monday, February 9th, 2009
We talked to the students from Michigan State and Syracuse who are assisting with this year’s judging. Find out what they are interested in and their ambitions for the future — and how they see the Society helping them.
Day 2: Your Top 10 winners heading into the final day
Sunday, February 8th, 2009
The sun is setting, the clouds moving in and temperatures dropping outside of Drumlins. The Best of Newspaper Design™ judging is also winding down. The judges continue to make good progress today with more than 9,000 entries judged at this point. The top winners (by number of awards) so far in the competition, in no
Day 1: The wrap
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
We’ve finished the first day of The Best of Newspaper Design™ judging here in Syracuse. The judges have given a little more than 500 awards, making their way through more than 5,000 entries so far. The top 10 winners in the competition so far, ranked in no particular order are Zaman, Excelsior, The National Post,
The 30th Edition: Introducing the judges
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
The 27 judges for the general competition of The Best of Newspaper Design™ have been announced by Dennis Varney of the Lexington Herald-Leader, the coordinator for the judging. Here’s a listing of the judges, by teams and categories. From left, Diego Zúñiga García-Falces, Santiago Carlos Ayulo, Gun Råberg-Kjellerstrand, Epha Riche, Jonathon Berlin NEWS Santiago Carlos
Day 1: Judges arrive, and work officially begins
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
The Society for News Design’s 30th Annual Best of Newspaper Design™ judging has just gotten under way at Syracuse University. We’re coming to you live from Drumlins Country Club, the site for all the action. The first day involves judges getting their instructions from Dennis Varney, the 30th Edition coordinator. Varney will break the judges
