Exclusive interview with Mario Garcia
by tksajeev

Mario Garcia

1.What is the basic of a good design?
Make it easy to find. Make it easy to read. Make it attractive.

2. What makes one a good designer?

Ability to create a specific solution for each individual project. Ability to relate to the creative process in a team. Ability to communicate with editors.

3 How can a designer update his work?

Be aware of what surrounds you. Be on the lookout for everything that is designed , from furniture to napkins and billboards. Inspiration is everywhere.

4.What are the new trends in news design?

I don't follow the trends. I concentrate on what is functional and works, and that was the same 100 years ago and today. But, if you ask ONE trend: make design compatible with avrious platforms.

5.Can you name two or three best designed newspapers in the world and why you rate it high?

Difficult. My ffavories. NY Times, The Telegraph, ===manage to have good navigation, great great content, and the writing/editing is superb. The rest is secondary.

6.How the readers eye travel through the newspaper?

Go to Poynter.org and look up EyeTrack it is a complete study. But readers are fast and don't spend more than 25 seconds to get to where they want to go.

7.What impact the visual media has created in newspaper designing

We are more visual because of it. Readers don't just want a headline and text: they want the story told visually. That is the influence of the graphic revolution around us.

8.What are the primary facility needed to bring out a better designed newspaper?

Good content. Creative editors/art director/ knowledge of who the audience is.

9.What's the role of a design style guide?

To maintain the rules. To give visual consistency to the product. Wtihout it, there is usually a turn to chaos.

10.How redesign can be monitored?

It takes daily sessions, good reviews of what is done, a style book that is consulted, an art director and editors who CARE.