Visual Editors
Visual Editors, NFP was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2004.
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scavendish
VizEds Moderator
Joined: 08 Mar 2004
Posts: 761
Location: Chicago Tribune
Posted:
Thu Jun 14, 2007 4:41 pm
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Yes, that's right sports fans, who needs designers? They only bloat your payroll and add to your headaches with pesky questions about customizing the look of the news to the actual events of the day.
Now you can just use templates, courtesy of the fine folks at layoutexecutive.com.
From their pitch:a
| Quote: | | The task of interviewing designers can take weeks before you find and hire the right one. And then it could take your designer anywhere up to 4 to 6 weeks to create the newspaper templates for you. Don’t you wish you could save yourself that time and hassle? |
As a matter of fact, they're so sure that you will be satisfied, they're offering a 100% money back guarantee.
The layout templates are more than worth the $1750 you'll pay, but by acting now you can get these FREE BONUS GIFTS:
**Media kit templates for your ad reps or sales team
**Photoshop actions (scripts) for automatically formatting images for print,
and tutorials describing this process
**Microsoft Word document templates for story creation
**Forms and checklists for story creation
How much would you expect to pay? If you said $3600, you'd be right! By acting now, you get it at less than half price!!!!
As the site says:
Don't wait another minute – professional templates are just a click away, and you can begin creating your newspaper in mere moments after you order the Newspaper Layout Templates.
Operators are standing by. Layoutexecutive.com is in no way affiliated with w e n a l w a y .com, rahsalghoul.com, victormaitland.com or w o r d h a w k . com although they may indeed endorse the product.  |
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John Zhu
Maestro
Joined: 12 May 2004
Posts: 275
Location: Durham, NC
Posted:
Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:39 am
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| tksajeev wrote:: | | can anyone tell in detail how this template works |
I watched the tutorial movie he had up on the site, and it was basically a crash course on InDesign. He just teaches you how to place text and photos into the templates he gives you. There doesn't seem to be any automated processes that automatically makes everything fit on the page.
When I saw this post, my initial reaction was pretty much the same as everybody else on here: ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!! Heck, it took awhile before I was convinced the site was actually real and not some hoax. But when I read a bit more of the site, got past the relentless self-promotion, and thought about the subject, I actually saw some merit in what he's offering, and here's why (please hold off on the stoning until I'm done):
1. It seems like the main market he's trying to target are small community or niche publications, some of which likely don't have the money to keep designer(s) on staff, and hiring a freelance designer can be a big on-going expense. What this guy seems to be offering is a one-time cost (and a relatively low one for that) for a set of tools that will help ensure basic, relatively professional looking layouts for the publication. Granted, I only saw a couple template samples on the site, but while they are simple and not all that creative, they ARE better than some of the "layouts" I've seen in small, local publications.
2. When you think about it, what he's proposing isn't all that different from what daily newspapers are doing. Every newspaper uses templates and adheres to them to varying degrees (who hasn't heard the "no need to re-invent the wheel ever day spiel"). Obviously, we all understand that the templates are starting points, not finished products. How far you're able to elevate your work from the starting point depends on your skills or the talent that you can afford to hire, but the templates are there to ensure a baseline quality. The templates that this guy is offering seem to serve the same purpose. They don't prevent someone from going beyond them, and they do give someone who isn't a designer a decent place to start from.
3. So this guy is proposing that we give non-professionals a set of tools that allows them to, with relatively little professional education/training, jump in and produce a product that's decent looking and won't be an eyesore. Hmm ... the more I think about it, the more it sounds like what newspapers are doing by giving reporters cameras and AV equipment. Yeah, they'll admit that such work won't be as good as if it was done by a professional photographer or videographer, but they would argue that the quality doesn't have to be great, just sufficient (because apparently that's all we need on the web). They'll add that they can live with the tradeoff in quality for quantity and timeliness. Well, if you're starting a small publication on a shoestring budget, you'll have to make similar tradeoffs as well. Producing a publication with the tools he's offering won't be as good as if you hired a good designer, but it'll also save you oodles of money. It's a financial move, just like newspapers' "multimedia reporters" idea is in part a cost-cutting measure. The only difference is that newspapers would never admit it and would spin it as purely "reinventing ourselves to better serve the readers." It seems a bit hypocritical for us to scoff when photographers worry about losing their jobs to reporters with cameras, then turn around and act indignant when someone offers up an idea that might eliminate some of our jobs while producing a "sufficient" product. If we feel like we can learn how to produce good multimedia pieces on the job, why is it beyond the realm of possibility that someone can learn to do good layout on the job as well using a set of templates?
4. This guy actually doesn't suggest that people who buy these templates don't need a designer for the production of the publication. In fact, he says they should buy the templates and hire a junior designer to use them. The main thing the templates are designed to cut out, it seems, is the cost in developing the templates. Again, this idea isn't all that different from what most newspapers are doing. Can papers make the claim that every hire they make is of the same skill level? Of course not. They hire some designers with the idea that they'll be the lead designers who do the really creative stuff, and they hire others expecting them to, in essence, fill in the blanks in the template and make some minor tweaks and small touches here and there (at least to start off). It's same idea behind teaching copy editors how to paginate. They aren't expected to do great design, just sufficient. Again, if you're working on a limited budget, this could be a way to reduce cost because you could do the layout yourself, or if you have to hire someone, they won't need to be as experienced or skilled to put out a product that you can live with.
Sorry for the long rant. I figured that as long as I kept yapping, people can't start hurling rocks at me. As a designer, I obviously won't buy this. But if I had no design skills and am starting a publication where I feel it's more important to have the money to print the publication than to make it look spectacular every issue, I would definitely consider this option.[/i]
_________________
Let this be a lesson to you: Never Try.
Last edited by John Zhu on Fri Jun 15, 2007 8:50 am; edited 1 time in total |
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