WAN and SND Middle East holds layout and design workshop for Iraqi papers

It was part of a larger support programme for Iraqi newspapers carried out by the World Association of Newspapers
(WAN) and financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

"This workshop has opened my mind to new ideas and I will never perform my job the way I used to. I am looking forward to additional courses of this type," said Fadheel Mohamed Fadheel Al Karawi, designer at Al Jardida newspaper in Baghdad.

Ramzi Rahab, Art Director at the Emarat Al Youm newspaper in Dubai, and Douglas Okasaki, Senior Newspaper Designer at the Gulf News in Dubai and Middle East and Africa Regional Director of the Society for News Design (SND) conducted the training.

The six participants from all over Iraq (Baghdad, Sulaymania and Basra) learnt for example how to draw a dummy, how to design newspaper pages and make good choices of illustrations. The visits to the design departments of Al Ghad and Al Rai were highly appreciated by the participants.

"It is the first time I had the opportunity to see how a high circulation newspaper works and to visit the printing premises of a major publication," Ranja Shukri Tawfiq, Art Director at the Kurdish-language Awene, told APN.

"During our collaboration with Iraqi newspapers over the past year, we learnt that many of them lack in know-how and experience in the area of layout and design. In Baghdad there are even some newspapers that have to rely on freelance designers who come to the paper on a daily basis to do their layout. The aim with this workshop is to provide the papers with the tools to do their layout and design in-house," said Kajsa Törnroth, Co-Director of Press Freedom and Media Development Programmes at WAN.

"We are working with a core group of newspapers from different regions in Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan. Our aim is to support them in becoming commercially viable enterprises through offering them very practically-oriented training in different areas of the newspaper business," said Kajsa Törnroth.