In what way is the speaker out-of-touch? He has personally overseen circulation improvements of ~ 30 - 100% in the newspapers he has redesigned.
"Design" in this sense goes far beyond "graphic embellishment" and is actually about changing the entire product/company involved -- and thus very relevant to the future of newspapers.
A few quotes from his speech:
"It was my personal, intimate challenge to talk to the readers."
"the changes we made were not about changing the look, it was about changing the product completely"
"my bosses wondered, why is he asking all these business questions, why is he not showing us pages? This is the new role of the designer, to be in this process from the beginning to end."
"Design" in this sense goes far beyond "graphic embellishment" and is actually about changing the entire product/company involved -- and thus very relevant to the future of newspapers.
A few quotes from his speech:
"It was my personal, intimate challenge to talk to the readers."
"the changes we made were not about changing the look, it was about changing the product completely"
"my bosses wondered, why is he asking all these business questions, why is he not showing us pages? This is the new role of the designer, to be in this process from the beginning to end."