Society of News Design appoint regional director for Middle East and Africa

The organization has more than 2,600 members in the United States, Canada and more than 50 other countries. Membership is comprised of editors, designers, graphic artists, publishers, illustrators, art directors, photographers, advertising artists, Website designers, students and faculty and membership is open to anyone with an interest in journalism and design.

For this new position SND selected Douglas Okasaki, a graphic designer based in Dubai,(UAE) with large experience in newspaper design. Okasaki has worked in newspaper since 1989, the first newspaper was Folha de S.Paulo one of the most important and with high circulation in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In 2001 Douglas won the "News Graphic Generation" a special program of Reuters Foundation for designers with work experience in the most prestigiuos newspaper in London, as The Guardian, The Independet, The Times and Financial Times. In 2004 he worked for the International Press, a newspaper based in Tokyo (Japan).

This year Okasaki became the first designer to give a "Award of Excellence" for a Emirates Newspaper in the most prestigious and competitive newspaper creative contest in the world, with more than 15,000 entries with more than 200 newspaper titles.

"This opportunity is important to begin a talk about our reallity. Think together about a regional design, with our regional problems and solutions. If we become united and organised, it will be easy to get solutions and we will become better in our design projects," says Okasaki.