The President of the Society for News Design, Kris Viesselman, reacted with “concern” to an announcement that Gannett, a large newspaper chain is centralizing design and production this way:
Beyond layout: Design thinking
This is not merely an aesthetic consideration — but also one of product value and usefulness. If one considers the sole value of design to be making pieces fit on pages, an ‘assembly line’ solution may seem attractive. However, architecting publications to meet reader needs is something more complicated, nuanced and essential.
We see design as identifying and understanding user needs and business requirements, conceptualizing solutions and crafting products that directly address those needs.
Design thinking is a term often used with — at best — a loose definition. Tim Brown, of IDEO, uses it to mean process-oriented solutions, product design techniques and a means of channeling new and different ideas that are responsive to user needs. Certainly Design Thinking is much more than graphic design and layout.
It’s easy to argue that Gannett’s consolidation effort will hurt the graphic design of the daily newspapers: they may feel more generic, less tied to specific communities and designers will almost certainly be less involved in the content gathering process. But, by Brown’s definition, this may actually be an example of clever Design Thinking on the part of Gannett.
This consolidation could allow Gannett to redirect its resources to other things. Put more reporters on the streets, shift more design focus to the online properties or explore new kinds of visual, digital storytelling.
The proof will be how Gannett uses their savings. Passing along the money as dividends or bonuses would just be cost cutting. Use the savings as an opportunity to reposition value resources… that’s Design Thinking.
