This time last year, Khoi Vinh — former design director of the New York Times — wrote a heart-wrenching post entitled “The sad story of illustration of the web.”
In it, Vinh mourned the fact that, thanks to 24-7 publishing schedules and slashed budgets, web publications rarely commission original illustrations. Instead, says Vinh…
“digital publishing traffics in photographic images, most of them literal — an article about President Obama will be accompanied by a photo of President Obama.”
Re-reading Khoi’s post this morning, I realized that I share much of his frustration with the way blogging is killing creativity. Not so much the lack of visual creativity: I’m not a designer, I’m a word guy. Rather, what makes me weep is the death of brilliant puns in headlines.
Growing up in the UK, I was surrounded by journalistic punnery. Take, for example, this 2006 headline regarding North Korea’s unsanctioned testing of nuclear weapons…
Or how about the same paper’s reporting of Caledonian Thistle football club’s victory over rivals Celtic…
Just take a moment to savor the work that must have gone into that one: “SUPER CALEY GO BALLISTIC, CELTIC ARE ATROCIOUS.” Amazing.
Small, regional newspapers play a good game too.…
Read More...