Sun-Sentinel Gets Shocked
As the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale took to the World Wide Web about a year and a half ago, the print-side graphics staff saw the writing on the wall.
"The online folks didn't have a graphics department, so we realized that we would be providing the visuals," says Scott Horner, assistant graphics director.
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Print-side artists added interactivity to the Sun-Sentinel Web site (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/theedge). |
From the beginning, print-side staffers didn't want to simply shovel the same graphics they did in print to the Web in GIF format. They wanted to take advantage of all the interactivity the Web offers. So print-side staffers work as both artists and programmers to develop both print and online graphics simultaneously, playing to the strengths of each medium.
For a full-page print graphic of a giant squid, for instance, Horner created for the Web a see-through cross-section of the animal, with pointers identifying different body parts that users could click for more information.
To design such a graphic requires both conceptual and technical considerations. Typically the graphic artists and the programmer sketch out a simple storyboard detailing the links and navigation through the graphic. Then, the programmer begins assembling the animations and interactive elements using a program called Macromedia Director, which generates Shockwave applets allowing animation, navigation and music or other sound effects.
Horner considers Shockwave a good compromise between the simplicity but limited interactivity of animated GIF images and the more complex Java programming language.
"We're a print-graphics department, and we don't have all the background in online technologies, so it allows us to easily get onto the Web with interactive projects," he says.
Users must download a Web browser plug-in before viewing Shockwave applets, but Horner says that burden becomes less onerous as the format emerges as a de facto standard. Other applications used by the graphics staffers and programmers include PhotoShop, Freehand, Sound Edit 16 and DeBabelizer, which reduces image sizes for the Web.
As staffers became more proficient developing lean graphic applications, they decided to enhance interactivity, first with sound and online user quizzes. The next step was designing truly interactive programs, a goal achieved with NetTrack, an online application that dynamically plots historical, hypothetical or real hurricane tracking information.
"We don't have to post hurricane locations just in a static format because this will do it in an animated way," Horner explains.