Davemolloy.net

I’ve mentioned before the problems with the website of Trinity News. Essentially, we don’t have the staff to manually copy-and-paste the 45,000 or so words per issue, and when we’re lucky enough to have someone willing, they inevitably get bored and quit after a few sessions doing this mind-numbing, repetitive and uninspiring task. That’s why, apart from the PDFs of every issue this year, the site is out of date. So that needs to change.

The problem is that there is no easy, all-in-one non-technical solution. The elements that need to be incorporated are:

• XML export from InDesign
• Import of print content to website
• A quality, reliable Content Management System
• User-friendly backend for web-only content
• Backward-compatibility with existing archive (in MySQL databse)
• Accessible enough to be passed on to my successor without too much difficulty
• Multimedia capability
• Staff blogs

Now, there are a number of ways to go about this. ExpressionEngine uses custom fields that could be paired up with specific XML tags. Drupal has an entire open-source project on newspapers with a lot of work being done to integrate print design exports. And the Daily Tar Heel has a very interesting project called The Magic Bullet where they’re hiring an outside web developer to create their “magic bullet”: a customized, tick-all-the-boxes solution for their particular setup.

I don’t have those kind of resources available to me. I do have a summer, a lot of dedication, and a committed staff. I need to find my own “magic bullet” and I’m looking for input. Should I go with Drupal, with their open information? ExpressionEngine, which I currently use for this blog, and their paid professional support? Or some other solution I’ve never heard of? If anyone has experience or success with a small college newspaper (small compared to the Daily Tar Heel, anyway) integrating their print and online workflows, get in touch. I’ll update over the summer as this project progresses, and, if successful, maybe other student papers can benefit too.

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Jennifer O’Connell wrote a piece on page 5 of the Sunday Business Post’s Agenda magazine today about the problems facing the newspaper industry. It’s interesting for two reasons: first, it’s a working journalist in the Irish media writing about it, and second, it’s published in the main column space of the magazine, bringing it into the mainstream.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t exactly call it insightful or ground-breaking.

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The excellent I love typography has a wonderful blog post on the font creation process. Written by Jeremy Mickel abouth the creation of his first typeface, Router, it’s an incredibly detailed (hell, it has references) and fascinating look at the creative process.

Recommended.

-END-

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The Dublin-based office of The Brand Union gets the nod for being the force behind two successful redesigns receiving “distinction” status from the 2009 ReBrand awards.

The excellent redesigns in question are the much-needed National Lottery and GAA brands. It’s a really interesting read, too, as the Rebrand sites linked to show the before and after stages, in addition to materials like colour palettes and website implementation.

Thanks to @lirmac for the retweet that pointed this out.

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Dublin Bus unveiled their new website last week, and it’s the latest part of a company-wide redesign that’s truly ambitious and has created a striking, contemporary, and, let’s face it, well-designed corporate image.

Unfortunately, this major expense came at a very bad time, and, despite the association of poverty with public transport, the economic realities have forced Dublin Bus to cancel a number of services and prepare to eliminate large numbers of staff. This being a media blog, however, I’m primarily concerned with the tragic fact that such a carefully planned and executed body of work hasn’t resulted in tangible results for the company which commissioned it.

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