It’s now been more than 25 years of building the internet as a new platform for reading and engaging with media and content. Still, it feels that we have a long way to go in terms of competing with traditional print media when it comes to the quality of the reading experience.
So, the question is still open. How do we offer an experience that’s at least as good, and possibly even better? We’ve got screens in all sizes, and blazingly fast content delivery; we can even touch, change and transform the texts and the content while we look at it. Maybe it’s simply time to slow down and have a second look at how texts, images, videos, and ideas are distributed and digested. Maybe it’s time to take a different view of the new technology and see if it actually serves our needs, or if there is still some tweaking left to do.
I believe there is. I’ve been working with editorial design on the internet since before blogging became a thing. In 2000 I was part of founding the online movie magazine CinemaZone.dk where I worked as a film reviewer, news and reportage journalist, and editor. Later I took part in forming the editorial backbone of the music and culture magazine Soundvenue, which was both an online publication and a printed magazine during the 2000s. I’ve been working with MetroXpress on various concepts, such as a redesign of the since-closed newspaper 24timer.dk. And besides a long list of publications and media-related digital projects, I’ve been doing printed magazines for Danish companies like Movia and DSB and a range of other clients as editor and project manager.
Having a background as a journalist and editor myself these publications have given me great insights into the editorial dimension of publishing, the workflows, and the entire process from an editorial idea to a readers’ actual understanding of it.
Working with the user experience and design has given me great insights into the areas of shared value between print and digital media, and the areas where the two definitively part and call for different approaches.
Editorial architecture – combining editorial design and information architecture – is about optimizing for a great reading experience. Not page views or other short-term monetization models, tailored to hijack attention and disturb the reader from what matters. It’s about taking the user seriously and trying to use digital tools and technology to give the reader something at least as good as the classic experience of well-crafted print.
As outlined in this article Some perspectives on editorial design I see three key areas of editorial design that need to be considered for any digital publishing project: Editorial Identity, Reader experience, and Monetization.
Have a look at some samples of my work and get in touch to talk about ideas and processes, and let’s see how we can build something great together.
