Well, that was a nice week or so away from the blogosphere. No hand-wringing, no snark, no self-righteous tomes. Oh well, break is over. Once more unto the breach. Time to get back to blogging and back to writing about the journalism business that I’m no longer a part of.

Among the items from this week that caught my attention was Gannett’s announcement that it’s going to centralize design functions for its entire chain of newspapers at five hubs, with each hub handling the design of up to 20-some newspapers. A Gannett memo said

The goal of this project is to elevate the quality of design at sites where the recession caused a loss of focus on design.  And to sustain good design at sites that have been able to keep that a strong focus.

But let’s be honest here. This is a cost-saving move. As a former newspaper designer, it’s hard for me to see how distancing the designers from the rest of the actors in the journalistic process would improve the end product. The Gannett memo also said that each paper’s look will remain unique and that copy-editing functions would remain at the individual papers. However, as with all things in newspapers these days, when a company makes statements like that, you might as well attach the words “for now” on the end. There’s no doubt that the centralizing of design functions will make it easier for instituting a common template across all papers down the road and sets a precedent for future centralization of other functions.

The Society of News Design has written an open letter in protest of Gannett’s move. The letter points out (correctly) that:

If one considers the sole value of design to be making pieces fit on pages, an “assembly line” solution may seem attractive. However, architecting publications to meet reader needs is something more complicated, nuanced and essential.

While I agree with most of that sentiment (aside from the use of “architect” as a verb), here’s the thing to consider: The job of a publication designer is certainly more complicated and nuanced than just making things fit on a page, but what if it’s not (or no longer) that essential to the organization that’s employing the designers, or as essential as other needs that require money from the same pot? This isn’t a problem restricted to newspapers; it exists in any organization where creating good designs isn’t the primary mission (which would cover just about every organization except design agencies). Case in point: My first post-newspaper job was designing course packs for a nonprofit working to increase high school students’ interest in science. When I got there, their course packs were a mess — a hodgepodge of photocopies from a dozen different sources stuffed into a binder. That didn’t stop the program from becoming a big hit with science teachers across the state. I completely revamped the course packs and made them look good, and the staff and the teachers they worked with loved them. However, when the program ran into funding difficulties, the designer position was eliminated.

Want more examples? Just look around you and you’ll see an unending stream of publications and collaterals screaming for better design. Yet, having that better design may not matter all that much for the organizations that are producing them because a mediocre (and sometimes horrible) design might not really interfere with those organizations’ main mission. Heck, I can work magic on that clip-art filled, comic sans-dotted flyer for painting service in my mail box, but will it really add much business for the painter? Probably not, and hence the painter doesn’t even think about hiring a designer to create a nicer looking flyer. That, I think, is the quandary that newspaper designers are increasingly finding themselves in.

The SND’s open letter said that “If designers are used solely as decorators or mechanical paginators, their publications are not leveraging their full value.” However,  mechanical paginators might be all that news organizations need or want going forward as the print component of the organizations becomes more and more de-emphasized and the focus shifts to online. This shift will mean we won’t get print news products that are as well-designed as they used to be, but it likely won’t mean we’ll be getting less or worse news, which is the primary mission of a news organization. Perhaps a well-designed print news product will be — and may have always been — more a luxury than a necessity, and that all the fantastic skills a good designer has to offer a news organization will just make him or her over-qualified for the job. That’s one reason I left newspapers — I could see that the things I enjoyed most about my job — the things that went beyond mere pagination — were probably going to start disappearing from my job and my position could be increasingly reduced to little more than a smart monkey who knows how to use InDesign. That’s not what I went into visual journalism to do, nor is it a good direction for my professional development.

As for that SND letter, I’m sad to say that given the current climate, it comes off more like a desperate plea or a toothless battle cry on the retreat than a defiant stand. Really, would any company listen to a “you’ll miss us when we’re gone” cry from the people they are ushering out the door? The letter’s call for news companies to restore training investments to help print designers broaden their skills is unrealistic at a time when budgets are tight and journalism schools are dumping thousands of younger, cheaper workers who have more updated skills — skills obtained at no cost to the newspapers — into the labor pool every year. The letter also raises the issue of a “creative brain drain,” the idea that in losing designers, newspapers also lose their creative and adaptable thinking that could positively influence the organization in areas other than just the design of the print product. I can see some merit in that, but no one gets to hang around just to contribute creativity. You still need to perform a certain function, and that gets back to the fact that the importance of the print design function at a news organization is in decline. Also, who’s to say that if news organizations swapped print designers for more multimedia reporters and Web developers that the latter two won’t bring creativity with them?

As much as I appreciate designers and as much as I know that many of them can adapt and expand their skills to do other things (in fact I think that’s what they need to do to survive in journalism), if I were a news organization looking for a multimedia reporter or a Web programmer, my first choice would likely not be retraining existing print designers to do those things, not when I can go out and find people who would cost less and come in already with that training.