mario garcia

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From workshop to prototypeNot all projects demand the same schedule or logistics. While a

good foundation for organizing a redesign can be helpful, and we all

have ours, sometimes the timetable and special circumstances

demand a different approach, such as a three-day workshop where

key people in a project gather, to discuss specific goals that can be

accomplished by the end of the session.

Such is the value of the “workshop approach” to a redesign. In this

style of operation, a group not to exceed twelve people gather in a

room complete with computers, printers and sketch pads. If the idea

is to redesign a newspaper or magazine, then a top priority is to have

content issues have been resolved prior to the start of the workshop.

On the first day, a half-session is devoted to a discussion of how the

content will flow into the publication: scope and sequence.

This is followed by some sketching of how key pages—front page

(cover), table of contents (navigators), inside pages with and without

advertising, specific section fronts and supplements—will carry the

look and feel that the content demands.

In a good workshop setting, there is more doing than talking As soon

as some basic ideas have been exchanged, the next step is to sit at the

pure design

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computers to produce very primitive sketches that are then printed,

and put on display or beamed onto a projection screen for discus-

sion. And what a difference it makes to deal with “real” pages, as

opposed to abstract concepts. One hour of viewing pages can be the

equivalent of weeks of discussing how a type strategy, or column

measurement, or color palette might look on a nonexistent page.

By the end of each day of the workshop, clean, approved sets of

pages emerge.

And, at the end of the workshop, a full prototype of twelve or more

pages are available, ready for designers and editors to carry onto the

next step, production of a full prototype to be printed and tested.

Workshops do more than just save time—they also provide a good

opportunity for team building. Members of the workshop feel own-

ership of the project, and learning takes place that stays with each

individual long after the project has developed wrinkles and every-

one readies for the next workshop.