Collaboration

As I stare across The BG News newsroom and listen to the solitary click of the keyboards, I realize that of all the jobs at a newspaper, being a designer is the most independent.

Except it's not.

When people think about reporters, peopled tend to think of them as outgoing, popular, talkative, nosy, incessant, annoying, hounding, persistent and evil. But we're not all like that. There are a variety of personalities working as a reporter for The BG News, and for every newspaper at which I've worked. So though designers might seem like lonely, quiet workers, while some are, some are anything but. Which is a good thing.

In addition of his or her boss, every good designer needs to know the name of the photographers, the copy editors and the reporters. It takes collaboration to make a centerpiece good — the reporter writes the story, the copy editor thinks of a headline, the photog gets art and the designer makes it look good. But it almost never looks good unless the designer talks to the reporter about what the story is about (or at least reads the story), talks to copy editors about possible headlines and talks to the photog about which photos are in publishable shape and how those photos could be used. Whew! That's not even close to a solitary job.

I can't remember the point of this blog post. I guess the point is that while designers are not out interviewing anonymous sources, they are just as much a part of the team as those who are in the public's eye. Also the point is that all of this will probably go away when newspapers die and stories and photos get published to the web without a second thought to what the headline should be.