Grand designs must have stories to back them up

“Why are newspapers losing circulation? The answer to his question is of course content,” says Harold Evans, a newspaper design innovator and former editor of The Sunday Times (of London).

In an interview with the Independent (UK) he shares his views:

• About innovation: ”Here’s a thing about innovation. Nobody has ever predicted the next innovation.”
• About newspaper design vs. message: ”I don’t want to be in a position of criticising modern design. I think it’s wonderful. But I do utter these cautions: don’t dismiss the classic news photograph in black and white; don’t exaggerate the use of colour; and do think, as well as the visual appearance, ‘What the hell is it saying?’ “
• About some editors’ fears of upsetting conservative readers by re-designs: ”It’s bullshit. What does the authority consist of? Does it consist of a small type and slovenly presentation and classified advertising? No. It consists of the clear visual signal and how you organise the values on the page. The most important thing is: ‘Is it giving me a calibration of news values?’ You don’t lose authority by organising things clearly. You actually lose authority by presenting things in a way that appears [as though] you haven’t thought about the space.”
• About what makes a great newspaper: ”Bear in mind my wife edited The New Yorker. Even today The New Yorker is hugely read, more than a million circulation and some very, very long reads. There’s a series of complications here. Design can’t be considered without the context, the information. Design is absolutely no substitute for content.”

Sir Harold Evans was an editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981 and an editor of The Times (for a year in 1981).

He has written various books on history and journalism, including “Editing and Design” and “Pictures on a Page: Photo-Journalism, Graphics and Picture Editing”.

Since 2001, Evans has served as editor-at-large of The Week magazine that provides a summary of other newspapers writing.

He lives in New York with his wife Tina Brown. (According to Wikipedia.)

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