New York Times Writers Workgroup

My art directors at the Times were always extremely busy compiling and shipping materials. So much so, they weren't able to give feedback until late after hours.

Annoyed that my job materials were being delivered late, I outlined a mini-digital asset management system that would allow advertisers and writers to upload photos and captions to a central server. A complex set of permissions ensured that competitors would not view others' ads, nor view contents of another job.

Mapping out the workflow and using the less computer-savvy writers for usability testing ensured quick adoption and deployment. The application was in use 8 weeks from scope, and resulted in a significant savings in time and materials costs.

The New York Times writes...

As managing art director of special advertising sections at The New York Times, I was in charge of overseeing all design and production of over 250 multiple-page sections that were published in the paper and Sunday magazine each year.

For each of these sections, there would be anywhere from 10-200 or more images to manage, all coming from various sources – from advertisers, from commissioned artists and photographers, from institutions and organizations, etc. With all writers and designers working off site, it was an enormous task to communicate properly about images used in the pages.

It would take days for the one production assistant we had on staff to organize all the images, so that they were all put in their proper place with their corresponding caption on the server. We would have to open hundreds of packages, copy images to our server, burn disks and send out packages to the designers – on a tight deadline, of course. Since the writers and advertisers didn’t have the capability to open the files they were sending us, they wouldn’t even know what was there until they would potentially see it in the layout. Often the images would be of such poor quality that they were unusable. If there was a query from a designer, advertiser or writer about images, or about the captions belonging to the images, it was very time-consuming to try and sift through the packages and deliver an answer. In addition to that, late submissions would come piecemeal via email, often without any identification as to which section they belonged.

Life changed with the creation of the Writers Workgroup site. Bill Anderson created a very simple and easy-to-use site where writers and advertisers could upload images themselves. They would put in proper identification and captions, and the image would be viewable and have information about the file size. Eureka! We could see what we were doing – fast and easy! Off-site writers and designers could communicate and solve problems without involving the staff on site, who were overloaded with editing and closing the sections. The WWG site also became handy for other aspects of the business: we had a PDF library of all of our sections, and we could post instructions and tools for new designers.

Bill came up with a simple solution that was very inexpensive and reaped enormous rewards in the form of time and money saved.

—Julie Tennant, Managing Art Director, Special Sections, The New York Times