Memo to SND: Assign some designers to classifieds

The Society for News Design is holding its annual conference this week in Las Vegas. Alas, I’m not there, but I nevertheless have a suggestion for this group of mostly newspaper editors, designers and artists:

Turn your attention to redesigning newspaper classifieds, in print and online!

Looking at the conference schedule, you’ll see that there were no sessions on classifieds. That strikes me as odd, since classifieds are such a vital part in most newspapers’ survival.

I’ve been working on a white paper about print classifieds sections (sorry, delayed by some personal stuff that’s come up recently), and the majority of them desperately need to be redesigned. Most newspaper classifieds sections still look like they did pre-Internet, and they’re woefully inadequate in an age when online is becoming dominant for classifieds. Print classifieds aren’t dead yet, and I don’t think they will die anytime soon — assuming they’re reinvented and redesigned to be useful to the modern consumer.

As an SND member from an earlier period of my career, I know that the organization includes lots of talented people, who mostly get assigned to editorial design tasks. Classifieds desperately need help from this group of professionals — both in reinvigorating print classifieds and in designing next-generation online classifieds that can stand up against the powerful online-only competitors out there.

I did see at least one report that news designer/consultant Bill Ostendorf was speaking passionately about the need for redesigning classifieds in his session today. Listen to that guy!

How about it, SND?