NewsPageDesigner moves to SND

The site formerly known as NewsPageDesigner now exists under the SND banner at npd.snd.org — and it’s ready for action. The site – as the old one – is for all visual journalists to post work and share ideas.

Unfortunately, pages posted to the old site will not be moved to the new site, so you will have to create your profile from scratch. The site is built on the Ning network, which means some of your login details from other ning networks (like visualeditors.com) will be available on the new NewsPageDesigner website, and many will be familiar with the interface.

The question is, of course, how many social networks can you cope with being a part of? If you ask my family, I'm spending way too much time facebooking, flickr'ing, twittering, blogging, posting, surfing, uploading, downloading, searching, and more, every day. How do you find the time? I guess it's just like making a newspaper – a question of getting your priorities right. I'm working on it …

Matt Mansfield, President of SND, announced the move of NewsPageDesigner on update.snd.org on Wednesday – illustrating the news with a screendump (above) from the new site. 9 minutes before he took that screendump – who joined NewsPageDesigner? Look closely: Me :-)

Late Night, Snowy Weather

Whatever happened to the winter in Copenhagen? Seems like an eternity, but it really was less than a week ago when I drove home from our eldest daughter's new home – on my bike, in the snow, from Vangede to Østerbro. Quiet, beautiful and cold, until I got warm inside by the sight of the large TUBORG neon sign and the fuck finger of the nice young lady above …

Ariel's website: The story behind the picture

It is very unlikely that you will ever see my smiling face on the cover of the Rolling Stones, but this is just as good, and a great honour indeed: I'm on the opening page of the website of graphic designer Ariel Garófalo of Buenos Aires, Argentina!
__Ariel, representing design company DaniloBlack, worked with us at Jyllands-Posten (where I was Art Director at the time) on the redesign of the paper's main section over the summer of 2006, and spent a week in Copenhagen developing the final templates. The job was, more or less, to 'downsize' Ariel's colourful and energetic proposals for the redesign into something edible for the editors (sorry, Ariel).
__The final result, which I turned into production templates for the launch in (I think) August 2006, was a big compromise, but nevertheless earned us two design awards – from SND and SNDS.
__When I review Ariel's first sketches today (they are on his website), I think they were actually pretty good – only they had too much of that hot blooded tango feeling in them for a cold Scandinavian newspaper.
__The photo shows Ariel in the editorial room at Kgs Nytorv – discussing details in the sketches with Stine Vikman (right), a JP graphic designer who also worked on the project, and me, while Luciana, Ariel's lovely wife, observes from the background that we're doing things right.

Check Ariel's website (and the stunning photo) at www.arielgarofalo.com.ar

SND30: Five papers named World’s Best-Designed, 56 Scandinavian Winners

Four European papers, one Mexican paper take top honors
In its 30th annual “The Best of Newspaper Design™ Creative Competition,” the Society for News Design has named four newspapers from Europe and one from Mexico as “World’s Best-Designed Newspapers™.”The winners are:
__Akzia, Moscow, Russia, biweekly, circulation 200,000
__Eleftheros Tipos, Athens, Greece, daily, circulation, 86,000
__Expresso, Paço de Arcos, Portugal, weekly, circulation 120,000
__The News, Mexico City, daily, circulation 10,000
__Welt am Sonntag, Berlin, weekly, 400,000

See the five winners in this presentation:

View more presentations from SNDupdate. (tags: newspaper international)

The Society issued 966 other design awards for journalism published in 2008. The winners came from 10,725 entries submitted by 346 daily and nondaily newspapers in 43 countries.

The Scandinavian winners
56 design awards were given to Scandinavian newspapers: Sweden was the biggest winner with a total of 33 Awards of Excellence, shared between 6 newspapers (Dagens Nyheter, Göteborgsposten, Östgöta Correspondenten, Svenska Dagbladet, Sydsvenskan and Upsala Nya Tidning); in Denmark Politiken won one Silver Award and 10 Awards of Excellence; in Finland three newspapers (Aamulehti, Ilta-Sanomat and Volt) won 8 Awards of Excellence; and in Norway Bergens Tidende took home one Silver and an Award of Excellence while Dagens Næringsliv won two Awards of Excellence.

Read more, and find all the winners in the searchable database at update.snd.org/snd30

Jim Dine photography in Copenhagen (updated)

The American artist Jim Dine (right) visited Copenhagen this week to attend the opening of his exhibition "This is how I remember, now. Portraits" in The Royal Library. Below a glimpse of guests at the crowded opening of the show, which presents a large selection of Dine's portraits of his family, friends, and the wooden boy Pinnochio. The last photo shows Jim Dine in conversation with the curator of the exhibition, Jens Erdman Rasmussen, on Friday, the day after the opening, also in Diamanten at The Royal Library.
A few more photos on Flickr.
More info about the exhibition on kb.dk

Torso

Twenty-seven years ago (gosh!) I made this drawing from (the printed reproduction of) a bronze statue by Aristide Maillol — “Torso of a Young Woman”. It has followed me ever since — behind glass in a very simple wooden frame which I also made myself, from old wood in my fathers workshop at home. It may not be the finest piece of art I ever made, but it reminds me of how important it is to put down on paper the things you see and find interesting. And it reminds me that I should draw some more …

The drawing is available as a high resolution image from Image2use

The judges have left Billund

The judges have left the building – and Billund. The results of the Best of Scandinavian News Design 2009 competition have been decided, and the committee are preparing the official press release. A total of 58 winners (not counting the winners in the web categories) will be notified in a few days, so keep an eye on your mailboxes out there!
__Below are a few more images – a selection of lovely ladies – from the judges' days in Billund.
__More images on flickr

SNDS jury at work

The jury of the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition 2009 have been working since Sunday, selecting the winners of this year's design prizes. As always, the session takes place in Billund, at Hotel Legoland. The hotel does not quite look like its own self, as it is being restored. Here's a few glimpses from my first day on the scene – today, Tuesday. Tomorrow, all winning entries will be photographed for the catalogue, which will be published for the Oulu24 conference in Finland, May 14-16, 2009. Stay tuned at www.snds.org

Bananas up our ass – pic of the day

Found this old postcard size sticker ad for a theatre show in the street. Can't remember what the show was about, but then again – I don't have much style, so I probably never went to see it …