Perhaps More Visual Storytelling Wouldn’t Hurt Publishers

I was at a press conference and in front of me was a hasty journalist, with an agenda in one hand, her bag on her shoulder, her pen in her mouth and trying to take a picture with an iPhone 4S. My “luck” was that she was right in front of me and I could see her way of taking photos, no focusing, no subject, the same type of photos you usually find in every text written by a journalist that attends a press conference.

And because I am usually sort of helpful I whispered in her ear: “if you get closer to the table, tap once one the screen in order to focus and recline your phone a little you could take a better photo and different than the other journalists“.

She looked at me funny, smiled in a way that just said “really? You’re teaching me how to take a photo?” and only followed my advice about focusing. The next day I was curious about the photo and how it turned out, so I searched for the article. And it was just as I expected it to be: Rushed photos, blurred, no focus and no subject.

Today I’ve read an article in DigiDay regarding the reason some publishers are starting to use larger photos and how Medium, The Atlantic, Quartz, and ReadWrite have already adopted this style.

The trend is a new one for publishers, which have previously focused on optimizing their designs around the “fold,” the top 650 pixels of their sites. A holdover from newspapers, the theory of the fold held that publishers should pack the tops of their sites with the content that would most likely get readers to read and click more. It’s also the area where advertisers have been most interested in plastering their messages.

It’s just a new experience user by reading an article when inside the story you can also see a really good photo.

And lately it seems like more and more bloggers have started to consider both the responsive part and the visual part and what some photographes are doing with „a day in the life of a celebrity„ is in my opinion

a visual story telling worth following.

But let’s get back to our journalist. Why didn’t she pay more attention to her photos? Maybe she’s not paid for taking photos, but to write articles. Maybe she wasn’t using the editorial phone, but her personal one. Maybe she had another 5 events and 3 conferences that day and did not have the time to focus on the photo. But then why struggle with taking photos when she has to write those articles by tomorrow? Is taking photos her responsibility? Is it her responsibility taking care of the visual of the article? There are different sides and different answers. But I believe that “if you can do a better job, do the best that you can”.

Think about the visual part of story telling as something as important as the text.

Why? Because image is the first one capturing the consumer/reader’s attention (especially in social media).

I for one admit I’d love to see publishers start giving much more attention to visual story telling.

P.S. Think about this: Visual Story Telling is much more attractive for readers, but especially for brands.