Newspaper // Design Sprint day 2 - Rapid Idea Generation

DAY 2: RAPID IDEA GENERATION

In day 1 we gained a really good understanding of the design problem and opportunity, exploring it from many different angles and putting the audience at the forefront of our research methods. Today, the focus was on generating as many solutions on paper as possible. We identified the main areas of focus for the day:

1-Names
2-Title Illustrations / Tagline
3-Concepts
4-Funding

1 + 2.
We wanted to tackle these in rounds of sprints similar to what we had done with our research yesterday. We set the timer for 5 minutes and individually wrote down as many names for the newspaper as we could think of. Anything goes. This gave us a big list of names of various tones and themes. After comparing, we put the list to one side and did a 5 minute round to create taglines for each of the names we had listed. We felt that a tagline was important to give another layer to the satire and to establish the tone of voice that will be carried through the paper.

3.
We did a second round of these sprints, this time for 10 minutes, and bounced ideas off each other. This lead to more fleshed out concepts which carried a lot of the initial list further on. Our favourite concepts at this stage were:

Ubergine
Derived from the word Aubergine, which isn't dissimilar to the vegetable naming conventions of satire sites like The Onion, Ubergine is a word that doesn't emote at all, the aubergine is just a bland object devoid of character and has no connotations in the world of publishing. This is ideal as we can apply our own character to it.  Uber implies some sense of importance, which adds to the comedic weight of the brand.

NNN.News.Paper
A complete satire of the internet as a whole and full acknowledgement of the irony of trying to bring fundamentally web based content to print. Presenting itself as an alternative to the World Wide Web, we would see our newspaper exist in a fiction offline network called the NNN - New Nepotist Network.
Nepotism is defined as:

The .News.Paper prefix would indicate the "domain" and media of the physical newspaper within the fictional network. The concept of this offline network has a lot of potential to be carried forward in other areas of our paper. This also allows us to implement some of the ideas we were having in yesterday's sprint.

NNN has the advantage of sounding like a television network due to its abbreviation. This is not something that newspapers really do, so it gives a post-modern feel to whole publication.



We liked the idea of using a latin tagline or motto. Latin gives a newspaper a kind of trusted quality and a sense of history even if this is fictional. We wanted to find something that wouldn't seem out of place but once translated, would contain a secret message that supported the satirical content. Notable examples included :


I see it, but I don't believe it -> Video sed non credo
From the absurd -> Ab absurdo
On the word of no man -> Nullis in verba
I believe it because it is absurd -> Credo quia abserdum est



Or my personal favorite:
Everything said is stronger if said in Latin -> Omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina

As another 5 minute exercise, we decided to take the latin phrases we had found and try to invent the names of the newspaper that could be the tagline for. It was interesting how much the latin had influenced the kinds of names we were developing, as they had a seriousness to them that we didn't have in this morning's rounds.

Some examples of these are:
The Thirst
The word of odd
The daily return
The nihilists digest
Absurdo
The devil's advocate
The slanderer










4.
Funding Models

We started stage 4 by clarifying the funding models we identified on Day 1 (see previous post) and trying to come to a decision about which would be most viable. We wrote out the Pros and Cons of each approach and this gave us a much clearer idea of how best to proceed:

Option 1.

Source amateur content from forums and online.

+We can sell the paper.

+High level of ownership

+Creative Control

+Shows Initiative

+DIY Aethetic

+Curate the paper

-Ask Permission from many sources.

-Content may suffer from amateur content.

-Design will suffer from time spent curating content.

Option 2.

Propose Idea to large satire news sources in return for acknowledgement and free promotion.

+Exposure

+Loads of HQ content

+Sustainability

+Sellable

+Prospect of growth

+Time Saving

+Design will prosper as content will be quick to source

+Large Scale paper will be the result.

-Have to ask permission

-Legal issues

-Loose some ownership

-Loose control on tone of voice

-Sources may constrict our choices

Option 3.

Carry out option 2 without permission from sources. This will result in a proposed paper only.

+All same positives from option 2.

-EXEPT- Cant sell product.

-Will never go live.

+No legal issues

Option 4.

Write it ourselves with contributions from friends and relatives.

+Total ownership

+Cohesive tone of voice

+Shows initiative and skill

+Sellable

-Time Limited

-Smaller production

-Content quality could suffer

-We are not experts

-Design could suffer from time spend writing. 

The plan is to combine Option 2 with Option 4 i.e. mix our own written content with 'professional' sources to produce something which combines good quality content with an authored tone of voice. We  are aiming to contact a potential source for articles on Friday with our proposition for the use of their articles and demonstrate the concept we would like to run with through the newspaper. Whether we adopt Option 2 or 3 depends on what response we get back. Moving forward, our plan is to send a follow-up email next week with a more finished product looking for feedback and possibly commercial go-ahead from our source.

Tomorrow is day 3: Development. We will be taking forward the two favorite concepts of the day (Ubergine and NNN.News.Paper) and developing them visually. We will begin with quick-fire ideas for each, and choose which idea of the ideas to develop further, or if we would prefer another option. The rest of the day will be concerned with sketching formats, layouts and visual elements to push towards a final product.