Words and pictures

The magazine metaphor and the rise of the graphic web

Most of us would agree we are more likely to be engaged by a talk or presentation that is accompanied by images, which is why they are now an intrinsic part of my teaching: anybody who has attended one of my classes or conferences knows that I like to use images to illustrate my arguments, to the extent that my presentations are sometimes little more than a series of images, often without any text, that help me remember what I am trying to say, as well as prompting debate among my students. The initial reason for this approach was simply to avoid having to translate my talks, but I soon discovered that the use of images helped me communicate better. In contrast, for my web-based work, I used to rely more on intuition to guide me in illustrating my point, in the hope that this would make my writing more accessible.

A quick trawl through my blog over the last decade leaves little doubt that while I employed few images in the early days, usually going straight into my piece without a photo to indicate what I was talking about. Later on, I began using small, uncaptioned images: 3 x 3 cm at most, unpadded, surrounded by reams of text. But nowadays, I use more, and bigger images, up to 10 x 10 cm, with lots of space around them, and the layout, unwittingly, has come the resemble the magazine format.

The size of the images in both my work and in what I read seems to grow progressively. An attractive image, relevant or thought provoking, related to my subject, is now essential for getting a decent clickthrough rate on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, in just the same way that a good headline is, and a growing number of visits to my site originate in this way. Little wonder that my conversations about redesigning my page with the nice people at Blogestudio, are mainly about image use, as well as how to find much more space for tools like Flipboard or Pinterest.

Not all social networks give the same importance to graphics. A link to a Google+ page with images is usually successful. Facebook, on the other hand, often fails to capture the image, as well as reducing the image. On more than a few occasions I have had to upload my own supplementary images with a link, rather than through a conventional link. It would not surprise me if at some point in the future Facebook were to undergo a redesign so as to handle images better.

Flipboard’s visualization can be very attractive, but on pages where there are several images, there is no way to establish which relates to the main story, something that will doubtless be rectified in the future.

In the case of Pinterest, the image is the star attraction, with the link and the text relegated to a supporting role, albeit a secondary role with significant traffic-generating capacity.

The changes that my site has undergone over the years reflect the extent to which the web is increasingly prioritizing the use of images.

I have recently written about Flipboard’s decision to make its magazines available on the web, as well as Google Currents, which also provides a magazine format for my content, and of course Pinterest, a network which never fails to surprise me. My experience with these products could not be more positive: from the day that Flipboard announced access via any navigator or device, the number of people following my “Technology readings” publication has quadrupled. On Google Currents which is aimed at cellphones and tablets, I have now more than 2,500 subscribers.

The pinboards on my Pinterest site for my technology clippings, my blog in Spanish, and the books I am reading, have almost 2,300, 1,700, and 1,600 followers respectively. Pinterest’s own statistics show that these boards generate some 2,000 hits, with an average reach of 1,000 people a day. These figures, reasonably discreet in the case of a page dedicated to technology, nevertheless illustrate the potential of the fastest-growing and most relevant social network.

The use of images and the importance of graphic design is growing, and is not merely a result of more broadband being available: tablets and smartphones, despite having, in theory, limited broadband use, tend to prioritize images in terms of clickthrough.

Infographics are increasingly the star attraction, with more and more platforms dedicated to photos and graphics appearing all the time. Whatever the reason, while sales of print magazines plummet, magazine-format sites and services are taking over the web: from Flipboard, the most-magazine inspired, to blogs and corporate pages. The web, it would seem, has finally accepted that a picture is still worth a thousand words.