Online isn't half bad

by VISI EDITOR Jacquie Myburgh Chemaly

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VISI editor Jacquie Myburgh Chemaly expresses her frustration at designers who only want their work published in print and not online. Could it be they fear that ultimate put down: of not being shared or retweeted?

As a journalist, I am naturally interested in the news and most mornings I’ve visited at least two websites on my phone and iPad before breakfast. By the time I get to the office, I’ve checked Twitter and Facebook and that’s when I open my computer and start going through my overnight emails and opening the newsletters from design websites and magazines all over the world that keep me informed and inspired.

Images and stories that I want to refer back to, I either save onto my computer or tablet, or I bookmark them. Anything I think would appeal to others like me, I share on Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook. (That’s just me, I prefer Twitter.)

Some days it’s lunchtime before I pick up a magazine or a newspaper and feel paper and ink between my fingers. At no stage during my earlier electronic media consumption, however, have I felt that any of the news or information that I absorb is second rate to that which I read in print.

Yet, there continues to be a perception among many of the people sending us stories for consideration that unless we’re going to use them in the print edition of VISI, they’d really rather we didn’t use the content at all. VISI.co.za simply doesn’t cut it yet.

Where were these people when Facebook reached the 750 million member mark? They’ve quite clearly never experienced the thrill of opening the daily Designboom newsletter with its crisp and colourful scroll of groundbreaking new designs.

My daily media routine will seem exactly that – quite routine – for many reading this because if you’re on the VISI website right now, chances are you probably share similar media habits.

However, we’ve quite clearly still got a way to go convincing large parts of the design community that there is value to having your work published digitally, and I’m starting right now.

For starters, you need to run the numbers. We bring out six issues of VISI a year. That’s six times, 200 pages of design ideas, inspiration and information – no more.

But there is more - online.

We also distribute a digital newsletter with totally original content to more than 6,500 subscribers once a month. By far our most efficient way, if you think about it, of distributing decor, design and architecture news and trends is through our daily updated website. There the visitors run into tens of thousands and the figure is growing by the day. We talk to more than 3,100 Twitter followers and almost 2,000 Facebook fans. That’s a hell of a lot of digital readers consuming VISI’s unique mix of decor, design and architecture news, all day long and not every two months.

But still, the creatives hold back. We’d rather see our designs immortalised in print at an undetermined date in the future than risk a moment of fame on VISI.co.za, they think.

I know it’s easier for us media types, who’ve been privy to and part of this digital evolution first-hand, to appreciate the value of a multi-media bouquet. VISI is now more than a magazine and your designs are still going to be seen, appreciated and revisited by the people you want to reach.

They don’t disappear off the website after that initial mention – those images of your houses, museums, furniture and textiles will forever remain on the website and be revisited for years to come.

Besides, there’s the social aspect to digital media, which means that the true and immediate test of how beautiful your designs are will be whether the story is shared over and over and over again.

Yes, the thud factor of our coffee table VISI magazine will be a thing of beauty forever, but please believe me that those words “being published” now mean so much more.

In the meantime, will someone please print out this opinion, make a few copies, and pass around to friends who have yet to discover the miracle of the digital world?

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