Screen Design Vs Print Design

When it comes to designing, there are questions you need to consider - whether the layout/ writing structures is correct format and the different between screen and print design. The following will discuss the differences of document design for the screen and print documents:

Layout & Writing Structures

In this case study, The Star Newspaper in print documents has separate each topic different section. It has the headline on front page, and brief story of text below the headline. Also, an image represent the topic of the day. The advantage of print document is much easier to focus on a physical text and easy to flick through and scan. The disadvantage of print document is not easy to search and its difficult to make notes compare to online web, you just have to bookmark the tabs.

Newspaper Layout

The Star online website layout has 3 column layout and is easy to annotate. It is customisable on the website, and the navigation bar has separate each topic in general format. The advantage of screen document (website) is often access to links for further discussion and the interactive media such as videos, social media and comments. Moreover, the disadvantage of screen document (website) is not reading in isolation, it involve disturbance away from text and other on screen interruptions.

3 Column layout with navigation menu and interactive media

Typography

The Star application on iPad has an attractive typography on every single page (News). It shows the headline in different way compare to print document. The print document font is more static because screen document such as iPad, can be animated and shows interactive to the readers.

The Star iPad Application layout

Page Composition

The print document has a static design of page layouts. The printed page has the same font size, static graphics in same place, and the printed page doesn’t change the document size. However, the screen document such as website has more flexible, dynamic pages and the reader has many ways on how they view the pages. 

References:

Bear, J.H, Similarities and Differences in Print and Web Design. [online] Available at: <http://desktoppub.about.com/od/transitionprintweb/tp/Print_Design_vs_Web_Design.htm>  [Accessed 25th August 2011]

Nielsen, J. 1999. Differences Between Print Design and Web Design. [online] Available at: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990124.html>[Accessed 25th August 2011]

New Forms of Media Publishing

Social media become a trend that people can’t live without it such as Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. Younger generation are familiar with this new social media because of social networking among their friends. However, there are no more a tools that only for connecting people and for the purpose of gaming. There evolving into a tools which provide latest information and news to the society. It also play a role as a way to let people to voice out their opinion without any constraint. Take Twitter as example, it was also known as Microblog where people can post their feelings and opinions in a short and simple way. Twitter provides a unique way of following discussion and news just by using  the hash-tags (#). For example, you would want to know more about Steve Jobs, Just type # follow by his name.

Journalist uses Twitter to get the latest news. According to Robinson (2011) if you’re not on Twitter, you’re making your job (journalism) more difficult because it's a place where people are talking about things that matter to them. He did pointed out 5 main points for journalists who use Twitter:

1. Breaking news
2. Networks
3. Interesting Conversations
4. Interesting links about journalism
5. Story ideas

References:

Robinson, J., 2011. Aquick start guide to Twitter for ASNE members. [online] Available at: <http://asne.org/article_view/articleid/1823/a-user-s-guide-to-twitter-for-asne-members.aspx> [Accessed 25th August 2011]

Internet Evangelism Day,2011. Twitter and micro-blogging, Internet Evangelism Day.[Online]. Available at: <http://www.internetevangelismday.com/twitter.php#top>[Accessed 25th August 2011]

3 Types of Blogging Communities

Blogging community is a community that interacted online in the blog environment. By using technology tools such as Wordpress or Blogger, it gives user to communicate online in the blogging community as refer to White (2006).

There are many types of blogging communities but White (2006) categorized it into 3 main types which is Single Blog/Blogger Centric Community, Central Connecting Topic Community and Boundaried Communities.

Single Blog/Blogger

Figure 1: Single Blog/Blogger 

(Source: White)

Based on figure 1, there is only one owner or organization but there might be multiple of blogger writing in a blog. Commentors commented on the blog and readers will read and respond to the comments, thus the commentors are attracting their own set of readers to read their blog also.

Topic Centric Community

Figure 2: Topic Centric Community

(Source: White)

In this community based on figure 2, the blogger shared the same topic and interest. It can be specific only in Food, Fashion, Travel and so on. For example, Suarez (2006) wants to gather everyone who studies Knowledge Management to interact with each other, therefore she established a mailing list so that it can form a network  within the same people.

Boundaried Communities

Figure 3: Boundaried Communities

(Source: White)

This blog contain a lots of tool on it such as instant messaging built in, thus everybody can chat at the same time, discussion board and also social networking features. The benefits of this blog is it can provide instant feedback and possibly building a community.

Our Prime Minister Dato Sri Najib Tun Razak has his own blog click here, I categorized his blog as Boundaried Communities because his blog consists of several social networking tools such as link to his own Facebook page, his Twitter, Youtube, as well as Flickr. I found out that the blog is very interactive also because got comment box that can allow people to comment on certain post. Besides that, we can subscribe for the blog also to receive the latest updates.

(Source: 1Malaysia.com)

References:

White, N., 2006. Blogs and community – launching a new paradigm for online community?, The knowledge tree. [online]. Available at <http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2006/edition-11-editorial/blogs-and-community-%E2%80%93-launching-a-new-paradigm-for-online-community> [Accessed 25th August 2011]

Classification of Blogs

People has their own purpose to write a blog, and it has different types of blog depends on the interest and target audience. According to media analyst, Margaret Simons (2008), blog can be classified as 9 different types. The first will be Pamphleteering blog, Digest blog, Advocate blog, Mechanics, Exhibition blog, Gate watcher, Personal blog, Advertisement and lastly new blog.

Furthermore, Misty Belardo (2010) also classified different types of blog which are Collaborative blog, Travelling blog, Tutorial blog,  Current fashion blog and also Personal blog.

Comparison between the 2 classification above:

In my opinion, the classification from Simons is more specific compared to Belardo because she has narrowed down the topics unlike Belardo the topic such as Personal blog is more general.

Moreover, it has different type of audience because Simons has more specify type of readers depends on what topic of the audience is searching for such as news blog, diary or advertisement. On the another hand, Belardo blog classification has more general because it concentrate certain type on blog such as Fashion blog, Travel blog or Tutorial Blog.

References:

Simons, Margaret, 2008. Towards a taxonomy of Blogs. [online] September 11th 2008.
Available at: <http://www.apo.org.au/commentary/towards-taxonomy-blogs-0> [Accessed 24th August 2011]

Belardo, Misty, 2010. The 5 Types of Blogs | Which One Suits You Best?. [online]. Available at: <http://www.inkrebels.com/insp/the-5-types-of-blogs-which-one-suits-you-best/> [Accessed 24th August 2011]

Blogging Phenomena and Benefits to the Community

The blogoshpere has made up all blogs connected to each others as a social network, which the blogger can read, write and comment on them. Blogoshpere is the realm of the Internet blogs and to people to read and write them.

Figure 1: Weblogs cumulative from March 2003-March 2007

(Source: Technorati)

According to Sifry (figure 1), Technorati is tracking over 70 million weblogs, and in worldwide about 120,000 blogs was created each day.

Mobile blogging was the trend on 2010 based on Technorati's report. There is 25% of all bloggers are already using their mobile phone as a tool for blogging. Bloggers that reported Smartphone is a device that changes the way they blog is about 40% of them, they can even blog more fast by just few tap or few click. This shows that more websites customized for mobile platform. It would have social media application that integrates with the blog.

TheStar newspaper (2008) reported that the most highest active bloggers in the world was Malaysia, then the next country was Indonesia and the European Union. Also, Dr Abu Hassan Hasbullah (2008) from University Malaya saying that even nowadays 70% of the election results were influenced by blogs.

Moreover, the types of blog are prevalent in malaysia are about writing personal stuff (28%),
politics (16%) and technology (16%). Blog can be powerful tools that can influence people especially social blog or political blog. According to Gaman (2008), kennysia.com was ranked top 1 as most popular blogger in Malaysia. He is a full time blogger, who spend most of his time writing a blog. There are always have positive and negative feedbacks from the readers, and it helps the community to have different point of view.

The prevalent blog can bring benefits to the community because it can voice out their own opinion and share their point of view to the community. Blog can be part of the news, if the source has citation or credibility from the original author. It can bring latest information to the community and also interactive comment with the readers.

References:

Sifry, D.,2007. The State of the Live Web. [online] Available at: <http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000493.html>[Accessed 24th August 2011]

Sobel, J. State of the Blogosphere 2010 Introduction. [online] Available at: <http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2010-introduction/>[Accessed 24th August 2011]

Anon., Blogging in Malaysia ranks among highest in the world. The Star Online,[online] Available at: < http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/3/nation/20827588&sec=nation> [Accessed 24th August 2011]

Gaman. 2007. 50 most Influential blogs in Malaysia. [online]. (Updated 6 February 2007) Available at: <http://www.sabahan.com/2007/02/06/50-most-influential-blogs-in-malaysia/>[Accessed 24th August 2011]

Purpose of my blog

Hi readers, the purpose of this blog is review on the issues regarding on media publishing and design issues. Also, it would help me to understand relevant theories and concept of publication and design. For example, a good design may not be delivering to the correct audience if you don’t understand the concept of the publication. In the field of media or communications, my target audiences would be student or professional and they could find this blog as a reference.