Miranda Mulligan
Your survival is designed
Where is my jetpack?! Why aren’t we innovating … faster? I have been a designer for nearly 14 years, seven of which have been spent in newsrooms. Newsrooms are not exactly hotbeds for innovation. Why is that? There are tons of über-smarty-pants people in newsrooms, but design is still an after-thought. Journalism needs designers skilled in both editorial and web, in order to survive, let alone innovate.
The work of the typical web designer goes well beyond pixel-pushing beautification and rare is the project that has no need for a designer. At one point or another, nearly all departments cross paths with “Design” in order to conceive or execute a project, and the most successful ones engage a designer from concept to completion. Therefore, the designer is uniquely positioned to be one of the most informed people in any organization, knowing most of the idiosyncrasies of all the moving parts.
The goal is to infuse design-thinking, a proven method for innovation, into our news operations … An environment that desperately needs it. The dream is to have designers skilled in both web and editorial design, embedded into our news technology teams … and theeennnnn, jetpacks!