Arizona
Republic turns to InDesign for prototyping work
By Hays Goodman
Associate
Editor
When
a newspaper needs to rapidly and efficiently prototype a new section or tab, it
often turns to its everyday production tools.
And
why not? The newspaper’s designers are already familiar with the software and
the new design is easily adapted into existing workflows.
Once
in a while though, a designer comes across features in a newer app that force
him to leap into uncharted waters.
Such
was the case when The (Phoenix) Arizona Republic (daily, 432,284; Sunday,
547,860) in 2002 launched Yes (Your Essential Style), a weekly 20- to 36-page
high-quality fashion insert.
Arizona
Republic Design Editor Keira Nothaft used Adobe InDesign to create the paper’s
new “Your Essential Style” insert.
Photo: The Arizona Republic
While
the rest of The Republic is produced with CCI Europe’s NewsDesk software,
Design Editor Keira Nothaft knew she wanted to generate a more creative design
than was possible in that app.
Predesign
requirements
“Our
system is a terrific system for the volume of production work that we do,”
Nothaft said. “It does, however, have limitations. We tend to do a lot of
predesign work, and then when the ad stacks come in, we reconfigure. That’s
not something we could do readily in our current pagination system.”
According
to Nothaft, the database-driven workflow of the CCI application is ideal for
template changes and other variations on a theme. It’s not as ideal for the
more freeform way of working that graphic designers tend to favor when working
on a brand-new product.
In
2001, Nothaft did some planning work for a Society for News Design conference
that was held in Phoenix, and as part of that work became familiar with Adobe
InDesign. Self-trained on the application, Nothaft sampled initial copies of
InDesign starting with Version 1.5, but found early versions relatively buggy.
That
changed with the advent of 2.0, released last year. “Since 2.0 we’ve noticed
huge improvements in stability,” she said.
Color
management intrigues
According
to Ken “Gekco” Sliwa, advertising graphics publishing systems manager, The
Republic is particularly interested in InDesign’s color management
capabilities. That interest has been fueled in part by advertisers, and goes
hand-in-hand with advertisers’ growing embrace of PDF-generated submissions.
“Last
year we did just under 90,000 electronic ads that were processed into our
newspaper,” Sliwa said. “Of those, I would say that close to 40,000 were PDF-specific
that came in straight from a customer.”
Sliwa
said the use of InDesign will more than likely increase within The Republic’s
news production as well. CCI, he said, plans to support certain components of
Adobe InDesign - specifically the page layout module Layout Champ - within
CCI’s Baseline Release 6 app.
CCI
Europe didn’t return calls seeking comment.
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