THE WEEK IN DESIGN 13

Setting the tone

So often with Design, we are the first seen aspect of news presentation on a particular story.  In this respect, we are charged with setting the tone of the piece.  If a package begins with a live read, then what we show will describe that which follows.

We have a duty of care to get this right, whether the treatment describes the fun nature of the story, or the serious connotations behind the facts.  Get it right and everyone benefits; get it wrong and not only are we open to ridicule, but we risk misinforming or alienating the viewer.

The UFO intro was spot on. Quirky, fun, irreverent, but still relevant to the subject and communicating the information.  It panders to the viewer as a target market to just the right degree.

Petrol prices really benefitted the story.  The nod to a retro feel played to the historical nature of the facts; the treatment was simple (clean, clear, crisp, confident design) and the communication did not suffer from any design ego.

Loved the Spying Row design.  Without going too far, there's something of the Harry Palmer about the design.  With spying in this context, we can get absorbed in the tech and lose sight of the story.  This got the spying aspect spot on.

Let's be clear on the difference between setting the tone and selecting a relevant premise:

For the Online Child Abuse story, we generated a set up which was wholly pertinent: representations of images, facts and figures on a laptop.  There's some real cleverness in the animation (the status bar) and the information is clear.  There are some legibility issues with icons, but this isn't the real problem.

The problem, is that tonally, it doesn't feel right for the subject.  The treatment would feel equally at home in a story about  BT as an ISP and this does nothing to aid communication of the subject.  Bluntly, it's a little 'happy'.

As mentioned in previous weeks, we must be careful not to over editorialise with our treatment, but we should ensure that the 'look' is firmly in 

the right arena; in this case we need to represent criminal, sordid, sinister.

See the frame below as an example of what could be achieved to fix this – even after the fact and without a significant rebuild.  It is an area where we can certainly raise the bar.

CDE

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