Meet some of the best news designers in the world – in Oslo in April 2010:

Mark Porter is an editorial designer. He was born in Scotland and studied modern languages at Oxford University. Initially self-taught, he learnt from some of London and New York's best art directors.

He has designed a range of award-winning magazines and newspapers including, Wired, Colors. Internazionale (Italy), Público (Portugal), Het Financieele Dagblad (Netherlands) and NZZ am Sonntag (Switzerland).

He joined The Guardian in 1995, and in 2005 he masterminded the seminal Guardian relaunch, which has become a benchmark of contemporary newspaper design.

He then oversaw the redesign of guardian.co.uk, and now divides his time between print and digital projects for the Guardian and other clients.

He has been awarded the top honours in the industry, including World’s Best Designed at the Society for News Design, a gold medal from the Society of Publication Designers, and a black pencil in the D&AD global awards.

Jacek Utko, Polish newspaper designer and architect, based in Warsaw. Former design director for Bonnier Business Press in Central Europe.  Has received several SND awards, including best designed newspaper in the world  twice (Poland’s Puls Biznesu and Estonia’s Aripaev). Recently he works a lot on web design.

Newspaper designer Jacek Utko suggests that it's time for a fresh, top-to-bottom rethink of the newspaper. (At this point, why not try it?) In his work, he's proved that good design can help readers reconnect with newspapers.

As the art director at Warsaw's Puls Biznesu in 2004, he redesigned this small business-focused newspaper and immediately won the SND award for world's best-designed newspaper. Readers responded, and circulation went up. He's now art director for the Bonnier Business Press, overseeing papers in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states, and the work he oversees consistently wins major prizes (including another SND world's-best in 2007 for Estonia's Äripäev), despite their small teams and limited resources.

Dr. Mario R. Garcia is CEO and founder of Garcia Media. Mario has 39 years of
Design and teaching experience and has redesigned over 550 newspapers/publications/websites worldwide including The Wall Street Journal,  Paris Match, L'Equipe Mag, La Tribune (France), The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Asian Wall Street Journal, Die Zeit (Germany), El Mercurio (Chile),  Hindustantimes, The Hindu, Malayala Manorama and Mint (India), Il Secolo XIX (Italy), El Tiempo (Columbia), The Miami Herald, Goteborg-Posten (Sweden), The Charlotte Observer, The Philadelphia Inquirer, And many others around the world. Presently, Dr. Garcia helps media houses worldwide to rethink their products to survive in a multiplatform world. Most recently, his work with the financial dailies WirtshafttBlatt (Austria) and Handelsblatt (Germany) has had much acclaim for Garcia's strategies for convergence in the Newsroom.

He is author of a dozen books including his most recent, Pure Design. He served as
Professor at Syracuse University (New York) and the University of South Florida; and,
Since 1984, has been a faculty member at The Poynter Institute for Media Studies, St.
Petersburg, Fl., where he founded the visual journalism department, and has conducted Eye Track Research with Dr. Pegie Stark-Adam, and is now a member of the Institute’s National Advisory Board.
 

He has won numerous awards from the Society of News Design as well as receiving the
First Lifetime Achievement Award for his work as a newspaper designer. He has
Summarized his insights and experiences about the emergence of tabloid formats
Worldwide in a publication titled “The Impact of the Compact”, available through the
Garcia Media website, www.garcia-media.com. Most recently, he has authored a chapter
On conversions to compact formats for a new book published by the World Association
Of Newspapers (WAN) titled “Shaping the Future of Newspapers: New Print Products”.
PEOPLE Magazine included Mario Garcia on its 2007 list of the 100 most influential
Hispanics in the world.

Mario posts a daily blog. See TheMarioBlog,

www.garciamedia.com/blog

Ally Palmer is founding director of Palmer Watson. Ally has been a consultant for over ten years, and has a record of creating internationally acclaimed designs for newspapers across the world.

Before becoming a consultant, he was an award-winning group art director with The Scotsman's titles in his home town of Edinburgh, Scotland.
In recent years he has been involved in launches, redesigns and relaunches across Europe, South America, Africa and Russia. Four of Palmer Watson's projects, The Scotsman (Edinburgh), The European (London), The Herald (Glasgow) and Politiken (Copenhagen) have been included amongst the World's Best Designed Newspapers at the Society of News Design.

Juan Antonio Giner (Barcelona, Spain) is the president and founder of INNOVATION International Media Consulting Group and he is based in the UK. He was the first European Director of the SND, founder of the SND Spanish Chapter and the Malofiej Awards. As a consultant he has done work for more than one hundred media companies in Europe, America, Asia and Middle East. His last work was the creation of “I”, the new compact and compelling Portuguese daily-news-magazine, and the relaunch formula of Libération in Paris. Editor since 1999 of the INNOVATIONS IN NEWSPAPER Global Report published in Paris by the World Association of Newspaper (WAN). He was called  "An Outspoken Fan of Newspapers" by the Harvard University Nieman Journalism Lab.

Read his blog on www.innovationsinnewspapers.com

Meet John Grimwade, Graphics Director of Condé Nast Traveler magazine, in Oslo in April.

His message is: It is time to break down the barriers! Presenting information beyond the printed page, using interactivity, video, photography, dynamic databases, and anything else that exists in the digital world.

John Grimwade has his own information graphics business. It is surprisingly named: "John Grimwade Information Graphics." (www.johngrimwade.com) He has freelanced for over 30 other magazines. Before moving to the U.S, he worked for 14 years in newspapers in London (including 6 years as Head of Graphics at The Times in London). He co-hosts the annual Malofiej "Show Don¹t Tell" infographics workshop in Pamplona, Spain, and has lectured at many conferences around the world.

Bente Kalsnes talks about how to encourage user-created content and what to give back to your readers.

Engagement and reader-interaction through social networks for media companies.
Bente Kalsnes is a communication advisor at Origo.no. Origo is a Norwegian social network which offers people digital tools for group blogs, image sharing and advanced calendar features. Origo is also the community tool for 50 local and regional newspapers in A-pressen, a Norwegian media concern.

Kalsnes is writing a technology column for the Norwegian weekly Morgenbladet, and before joning Origo, Kalsnes worked as a freelance journalist in Brussels, writing about technology and the EU. She has a Master of Arts degree in communcation technology from Georgetown University, Washington DC. She has also written for Dagbladet, Morgenbladet, Mandag Morgen, Dag og Tid, Dagens Næringsliv.

Luke Hayman was born in Hertfordshire, England and studied graphic design at Central St. Martin’s School of Art, London, graduating with honors in 1988. He has lived and worked in New York City since 1992. He joined Pentagram as a partner in December 2006.

Hayman has wide-ranging expertise in the design of magazines, books, identities and exhibitions. He has served as the design director of I.D. magazine, senior partner and associate creative director in the Brand Integration Group (BIG) at Ogilvy & Mather, New York, creative director for Media Central and Brill’s Content magazine, and creative director of Travel + Leisure magazine. In 2004 he joined New York magazine as design director, and working alongside editor in chief Adam Moss, was instrumental in restoring the title to prominence. At Pentagram he has redesigned numerous publications including TIME, Consumer Reports, The Advocate, Radar, The Atlantic and The Khaleej Times.

His work has been recognized by the American Society of Magazine Editors, the Society of Publication Designers, the American Institute of Graphic Arts and the Art Directors Club. His tenure at New York culminated in 2006 and 2007  with a prestigious National Magazine Award for excellence in magazine design from the American Society of Magazine Editors. New York was also twice named Magazine of the Year by the Society of Publication Design and received an award from British Design and Art Direction (D&AD).

Hayman has served as the vice president of the Society of Publication Designers and currently sits on the board of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts. He has lectured at design conferences all over the world and in 2008 presented the Delacourt Lecture at the Columbia School of Journalism. He teaches at the School of Visual Arts.

Changing journalism in a changing world
Digitalization. Globalization. Time-squeeze. Attention. Fragmentation.
Business models. The impact from trends and forces surrounding the media are causing changes in journalism and editorial products. We are witnesses to news services going bust, failing, changing, and – due to new opportunities – shining up. Finally, the journalism and journalistic design is changing.

Jens Barland will elaborate about these trends and pick examples from his research project concerning changes in journalism.

Jens Barland (43) is a PhD candidate at the University of Oslo, researching on journalism. His professional background is from media management and newsrooms, holding positions as deputy editor in Aftenposten (2005-09), editor-in-chief and CEO in Stavanger Aftenblad (2000-02), and various positions in Dagbladet (1987-99). Another major engagement for Barland is involvement in international cooperation concerning press freedom.

Repackaging content for new products

Preparing for the future, newspapers need to launch a continuous stream of new digital products, many of them reusing existing content.  But to be able to do so requires a new way of looking at content, also for designers. Here are some of the experiences of Aftenposten in this exciting process.

John Einar Sandvand works as digital media strategist at Aftenposten. Among his tasks are exploring new platforms to present Aftenposten’s content and trying to find ways to make user payment work for digital products.

Sandvand has long editorial experience a variety of positions, including being Asia correspondent, assistant managing editor for editorial production and responsible for building up Aftenposten’s travel web site.

He happily discusses digital media trends on his blog BetaTales and on Twitter (@johnei).