Charles Apple

Monday dawned my bleakest day yet here in Cape Town, in terms of weather:

It’s 56 degrees at the moment, as I prepare to walk about three blocks to the newspaper. Today’s high is forecast to be 59 degrees, by far the coldest day yet in Cape Town.

And there’s 70 percent chance of rain forecast today. Which explains why it’s coming down right now. I need to go downstairs to see if the hotel can loan me an umbrella or something.

I shouldn’t be surprised by the change in weather. First of all, I’ve been told repeatedly I’ve been very lucky over the past two weeks — the weather’s been perfectly sunny and warm. And secondly, the high winds and rough seas that affected my boat ride yesterday was a precursor to today’s weather I’m told.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. You don’t know about that sea voyage just yet.

—

You’ll have to forgive me, please. As promised, I did indeed take a Sunday boat trip over to the infamous Robben Island political prison, where Nelson Mandela was kept for nearly two decades during the apartheid era in this country.

But I won’t have a full photo report for you, most likely, until later tonight or first thing Tuesday.

The reason? As soon as my boat returned, I grabbed a late lunch, hustled back over to my hotel and then spent the rest of the day working on my presentations for the advertising and marketing designers.

I’ve spoke to ad folks before — Much of my crowd at the Alliance of Area Business Publications conference in June 2006 were ad-oriented people, for example. But unlike news design — for which I have multiple presentations on multiple topics, any of which can be modified or updated for use — I have so rarely been asked to present to advertising folks that I have no ad-oriented shows to share.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ll have a fine set of presentations this week, I’m sure. It’s just that some of the principles I’ll be showing will have to be illustrated with editorial examples, as opposed to ad examples.

On the other hand, several of my friends around the country have shared examples of well-designed ads and wonderful marketing concepts. Thanks, gang — you know who you are. (Especially you, Ryan Huddle of the Advocate in Victoria, Texas. Boy, do I owe you a beer.)

I’m sure my class will be thrilled to see them over the course of this week.

—

Meanwhile, I managed to find a Sunday paper yesterday. And when I saw it, I immediately thought of my good friend Francie Williamson in Davenport, Iowa.

Why? Because a couple of weeks ago — before I left home to fly here to South Africa — I was working on a crushing deadline to complete an article for the Society for News Design in which we asked members and former members their opinions on how to “fix” the society.

It’s a huge piece and you’ll see it in the next edition of SND/Design magazine. It’s 23 pages or something; you can’t miss it. And quite interesting, I hope.

Anyway, Francie was saying that the society’s increasing inclusion of international newspapers has meant that SND no longer gives her as much information or support she needs to do her job at a small midwestern newspaper.

Francie wrote:

Yes, I understand SND wants to be global, but seriously, what do we in America have in common with foreign newspapers anymore? We don’t have the ability to print pictures of naked women, we don’t have reams of newsprint to fill, and we don’t have uber-fantastic artists or resources to hire uber-fantastic artists.

I could care less what someone from Clarin has to say about design. Seriously, I could care less. His audience in Argentina has nothing in common with mine in  Davenport, Iowa.

I thought that might be slightly overstated. But I also know Francie very well and I know her feelings are quite sincere. So I quoted her in the article.

So now you know why I thought of her when I saw the front page to Sunday’s paper:

That’s a story about a model in Glamour magazine this month who’s considered to be “plus-size.” She’s only a size 12, but because she’s not deathly thin, fashion folks all over the world are hailing her success as evidence the “preferred” body type for models might be changing.

An interesting story, in fact. But a very interesting choice to run the photo, which is essentially a promo to the story inside — as lede art on page one.

Score thus far: Francie 1, Charles 0.

—

I was delighted, though, to see evidence of our work over the past couple of weeks all over the paper. Like, for example, this huge bar chart that uses two types of color-coding: the color of the bars conveys information, as do the subtle tints behind them:

That was Anton, as I recall. Over on the business page, Elsolet created this dramatic bar chart to draw attention to dramatic numbers:

I’m really proud of what these folks are doing. It’s terrific work.

Now, it’s up to them to see how far they can take it. And it’s up to me to see if I can be of assistance to the ad folks.

Stay tuned, please. More to come.

—
EXPEDITION TO SOUTH AFRICA

You’re reading chapter 19 of my journey to Cape Town, South Africa. Previous installments:

• CHAPTER 1: Preparing for the journey.
  
• CHAPTER 2: I made it as far as the Dulles airport bar
• CHAPTER 3: Getting really bored sitting at Dulles
• CHAPTER 4: Safe and sound in Cape Town
• CHAPTER 5: Day one in Cape Town
  
• CHAPTER 6: Day two; No effects at all from jet lag
• CHAPTER 7: A tour of the Westin Grand
• CHAPTER 8: Dealing with little things like money and electricity
• CHAPTER 9: Thursday night on the Cape Town waterfront
• CHAPTER 10: Ending the work week on a high note
• CHAPTER 11: A Saturday trip to the Cape of Good Hope
• CHAPTER 12: A Sunday visit to Cape Town’s Table Mountain
• CHAPTER 13: The blustery ‘Cape Doctor’ winds arrive
• CHAPTER 14: Making some real progress in our class work
• CHAPTER 15: Giant infographics and a night on the town
• CHAPTER 16: Our last day of infographics class in Cape Town
  
• CHAPTER 17: Looking forward to a weekend of sightseeing
• CHAPTER 18: An interesting Saturday bus tour of Cape Town

This entry was posted on Monday, September 7th, 2009 at 1:51 am and is filed under Charles Apple, Travelogue, Trip to South Africa, Visual ethics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.