I was in Oslo invited to speak at the SND/S Conference.
As always, a very good one.
Well organized by friendly colleagues and a great program.
It’s a must.
On Thursday they presented the winners of its annual competition.
No gold awards this year.
No one!
“In this year’s competition we didn’t see the breakthrough that can give hope that the printed newspapers can regain a part of what is already lost. This challenge remains to be solved, although we can see that the Scandinavian media companies evolve in their expressions,” said competition committee chairman, chief editor Flemming Hvidtfeldt.
Well, I disagree.
There were fantastic masterpieces, but Scandinavians are humble and demanding.
Look at this great double spread page!
Yes, many of their newspapers are becoming copycats.
Same design, same formats, same covers, same inside pages, same type, same consultants, same content… yesterday’s news
So they are eager for new ideas, provocative design, better and different newspapers.
But my feeling is that what is not working (circulation going down in a very dramatic way) is content, content, content.
An old editors and reporters guard keeps the gates close to new concepts and better newsroom management.
They are more and more disconnected from new generations of non-readers.
Editorial choices are very traditional.
They have to realize, as I said in my presentation, that “It’s the wine, not the bottle!”
But there are fantastic designers and they produce first class work.
Here there are some of the winners.
Brilliant stuff!
Congratulations to the winners and shame to the Kings of the Old Content and Newsroom Management Ideas!
As one speaker said: “What we need to change is not our newspapers, but our editors”
Spot on!
Tags: SND/S Scandinavian Newspaper Design