Tangible reading

'Digital information may be impossibly voluminous and convenient, but it is also vulnerable and dangerously disposable. Already a vast amount of information has been lost. CDs disintegrate in just 20 years, whereas the Domesday Book, written on sheepskin in 1086, will still be with us in another millennium. Few people still write regular letters, but their replacement, the ubiquitous e-mail, is so easily deleted and forgotten, to say nothing of the fleeting text message. ' Ben Macintyre

As an editorial designer, advanced in years, and not wholly anti digital text, it's unsettling having to make shifts in the craft of typography to suit the speed of the online migration.

According to Wikipedia, typography is performed by typesetters, compositors, typographers, graphic artists and art directors. Until the Digital Age, typography was a specialised occupation. Digitisation opened up typography to new generations of visual designers and lay users.

It's the lay users that get me. Just because you 'can design' a cover of a magazine, doesn't mean that you have. The word 'specialised' is the key word.

Trying to maintain the standard of editorial design with migration to web speeding every careful design consideration, is of concern, if we are to keep the paper design principles high...