What's in the Bag - A Review

3:49 PM, 08.31.2006

By Steve Cavendish

All bags are not created equal.

When you register for the Workshop, you get a bag full of handouts/stuff/swag from vendors and other newspapers. Sometimes they're great (the San Diego bag from '97 has been sturdy for a decade), other years they're not.

The Bag
This year's model is good -- a black, synthetic type with the yellow SND Orlando logo on the side. Is it usable after the conference? Maybe. Might be good hauling gear to the beach.


The Contents

  • 8-page promo tab for next year's conference. Very Globe-Features-sectionish, which is a good thing. There's a couple of pages of Boston color, a cool subway/T-type graphic dtailing the areas they want to cover in next year's program and a few pages of things to see while in town. The best selling point? New England weather in the fall.

  • FontFont catalogue. It's thick (128 pages) and colorful (kind of a cool yellow/black scheme going on). Extremely well designed. It's a straight-up listing of everything they do. But it's also the 04-05 catalogue. Feels like they sent whatever was left in the closet.

  • FontShop catalogue. Only 44 pages, it's more of a magazine than an exhaustive list of everything they make. The front half of it is a hipper-than-you-design around a feature on graffiti artists before moving into some example pages. The last few pages are a design/article by Marian Bantjes (the text of it is here) with some really fun doodles on each character in the alphabet.

  • Hoeffler & Frere-Jones catalogue. More type examples from some of the best guys in the business (I think the number of newspapers licencing gotham is buying these guys summer homes out in the Hamptons). It's probably the best printing of the three.

  • Promotional packet from Brass Tacks Redesign. Alan Jacobson pimping the latest work from his group. It's heavy with work from the Californian and there's a press release touting increased revenue and a halt in the circulation skid there in Bakersfield (home of newly-minted AME James Bennett, formerly of the Boston Globe. Congrats, James).

  • CCI flyer. Pimping their session at the conference. Interestingly, the first thing they tout? InDesign integration. Way to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century, guys.

  • Brochure from Weather Underground. Huh. I didn't know they supplied weather information to the AP.

  • Pen from Weather Underground. FINALLY. Something I'll use. It's a short, fat little pen with a big, rubbery grip on the end. Uhhhhhhhh, let's move on.

  • API seminars flyer. Pimping their 2007 design program. I know it's kinda early, but I like to see who the faculty is on these things, even if it's just their staff.

  • Flyer promoting Tim Harrower's new book. Billed as a companion to his "Newspaper Designer's Handbook," the new title is called "Inside Reporting - A practical guide to the craft of journalism."

  • Orlando Sentinel flyer. It's a prison theme. There's a page of staff mugshots -- everyone's in stripes. (But they've all got the same number -- a little photoshop guys?). Funny as hell. Plus, I love anybody that self-promotes using the Nick Nolte mugshot.

  • Promotion from Swarm graphics. What's Don Wittekind doing these days? Leading a life of academic luxury at UNC-Chapel Hill? Well, yes. But the former graphics guru in Ft. Lauderdale has a side business with Scott horner and Lynn Occhiuzzo doing graphics and interactive consulting.

  • FontBureau promo. 8-page tab pimping their newspaper work with examples from the Houston Chronicle, Rumbo, the Lexington Herald-Leader and a nice piece of information on the back: how to run an effective press test.

  • Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel promo. A bird tells me they're redesigning.

  • National Geographic flyer. They're hiring (well, it says they're "looking for talent"). They've made a couple of impressive hires the last few years with Kris Viesselman and Juan Velasco.

  • Sunglasses from the St. Pete Times. I'd swear they had these at their booth last year (flourescent green on the sides, Ray-Ban-ish style), but the note attached to them says they're redesigning and recently built a design desk. Cue Timbuk3.

    And finally, the "**** you" of all of the bag swag . . .

  • San Jose's DVD. Haven't opened it up and watched it yet. I'm sure it's very good. And yes, that was the sound of 15 more people being hired by the Mercury News.


















    • SND site

    SND Orlando site

    Official SND blog

    Workshop program

    VisualEditors.com SND Forum

    News Artists' Organization's SND Forum

    Orlando Sentinel
    front page

    Orlando weather

    Lake Buena Vista area map

    Orlando World Center Marriott site






    The New York Times

    The Washington Post

    Hartford Courant

    The Virginian-Pilot
    Norfolk

    The Miami Herald

    The Times-Picayune
    New Orleans

    Chicago Sun-Times

    Chicago Tribune

    Kansas City Star

    Rocky Mountain News
    Denver

    Los Angeles Times

    San Jose Mercury News

    The Oregonian
    Portland

    The Globe and Mail
    Toronto

    Le Devoir
    Montreal

    Peru.21
    Lima

    Clarin
    Buenos Aires

    Folha de S. Paulo
    São Paulo

    The Guardian
    London

    The Scotsman
    Edinburgh

    International
    Herald Tribune
    Paris

    Marca
    Madrid

    La Vanguardia
    Barcelona

    La Voz de Galicia
    A Coruña, Spain

    Corriere della Sera
    Milan

    Liberation
    Paris

    L’Equipe
    Paris

    Der Tagesspiegel
    Berlin

    Dagens Nyheter
    Stockholm

    Aftenposten
    Oslo

    Gazeta Wyborcza
    Warsaw

    Izvestia
    Moscow

    Kathimerini
    Athens

    Zaman
    Istanbul

    Yedioth Ahronoth
    Tel Aviv

    The Daily Star
    Beirut

    An-Nahar
    Beirut

    Divya Bhaskar
    Ahmedabad, India

    The Nation
    Bangkok

    China Daily
    Hong Kong

    Asahi Shimbun
    Tokyo

    Chosun Ilbo
    Seoul

    For a few hundred more, see the Newseum and PressDisplay.com







    Mark Friesen
    The Oregonian
    | AIM: newsdziner

    Steve Cavendish
    Chicago Tribune

    Tim Ball
    San Jose Mercury News

    Will Sullivan
    PalmBeachPost.com





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