Old and new media = a cracking tale

At the broadsheet Sunday Tribune in Dublin this week where the dominant story is a fascinating mix of old and new media - spiced up with a bit of sex and politics. Pencil Sharpener

Celebrating 20 years of Photoshop

Happy birthday Photoshop ... 20 years old yesterday. Where would we be without it? Lots to enjoy on the web including Streakr and adobe tv. If you really have time to kill you can watch a full film of Thursday's 20th anniversary party in San Francisco (all two hours of it) on Photoshop 20th party. Even if you're not a geek the Russell Brown presentation is very clever. 

Great picture - 12 different layouts

One picture dominated the American front pages this week - Lindsey Vonn's look of elation as she crossed the line to collect Gold in the women's Olympic downhill. Most of the papers used it ... but at different sizes, in different positions and with different crops. In our Training tips we look at 12 front pages and their different approaches.

A snapshot of design over the years

Nice idea - all the official Winter Olympic posters  since 1924. The older ones do it for us ... particularly Chamonix, 1924, Oslo 1952 and Nagano 1998. What does that tell you?  Albertville and Lillehammer - the computer has a lot to answer for.  Worth a visual page in the sport sections? 

Buy a font and help Haiti

A new font has been created for Font Aid IV to benefit the people of Haiti. The font is made up only of ampersands - to represent people coming together to help each other. It only costs $20, less than £13. If every newspaper and magazine bought the font it would make a real difference. Details are at Typesociety. ALL proceeds go to  Doctors Without Borders

Digital innovation at Wired

Here's Wired moving into the digital age for both editorial and advertisers. We will see a lot of this in the near future no doubt but it looks like an exciting start. Digital Wired

World's best designed papers?

The world's best designed newspapers were named this week. Two of the top three are German, all are big read newspapers with traditional titlepieces, serif display and have swathes of space to play with. There isn't a tabloid or compact to be seen. Equally scarce are any advertisements. The winners, chosen, from 240 entries, are der Freitag (Berlin), Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, and The New York Times. It's a real accolade for der Freitag which is a weekly with a circulation  of 12,400. Take a look at the pages in detail on Flickr on Society for News Design and let us know what you think.

London course for Press Association Training

Press Association Training is setting up a second foundation course for journalists. The Newcastle course will continue but there is to be a parallel course in London. Makes sense. Details on the Pencil Sharpener.