“The most useful man in the most useful world, so long as only commodity was served, would remain unsatisfied. But, as fast as he sees beauty, life acquires a very high value.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Do you remember how, back in primary and secondary school, we tried to stand out by ironing parallelograms and razor-sharp ridges on our uniforms?
We didn’t just care about personal appearance, though. We also took time to beautify our books. We wrapped our textbooks in paper to keep them clean. When taking notes, we underlined some parts, emboldened some parts, used colourful pens to write some parts, and wrote other parts in cursive. The page markers separating one term or session from another were the best. We took our time decorating them. And this wasn’t just something we did out of sentiment or to attract friends and lovers. It was functional. Fine handwriting and a tidy, visually appealing note helped you to study better for exams. It made both writing and reading a fun little exercise. If you missed some classes, you sure as hell would prefer copying from students who not only wrote comprehensively but who also took the pains to write legibly and beautifully.
I learned this early, and it helped during the many years I was continuously entering (and more-than-occasionally winning) writing competitions. I knew it wasn’t only what I had to say that mattered, but how I presented it. So, I would make sure I used an elegant but respectful font, properly spaced the text, and that the references were uniform. Oftentimes, I would even include a framed title page. When I started being invited to panels to judge such entries, I realised so many people didn’t care as much about appearances.
I’ve come to observe the same gap in the world of journalism.
More often than not, stories look better when they are drafted in Google Docs than when they’ve been published. We have poor or average website designs. Ad banners, including clickbait, are squeezed into every corner, sometimes even covering the whole screen if you’re visiting on mobile. Sometimes, you are force-fed two pills of advert for every paragraph of journalism. Unnecessary AI slops are increasingly being used as cover images. Print newspapers treat digital publications as an afterthought, and you see this in the quality of images used, which look like tabloid screenshots. Sometimes, no thought is given to the dimension and arrangement of photos. Sometimes, the same font size or format is used regardless of whether a piece of text is a paragraph, a heading, or a photo caption. Also, have you seen the shoddy, hurried way many news outlets redact content in documents or blur the faces of people they are trying to keep anonymous?
We should give beauty a chance. I know we have other things to worry about: paying salaries, making money, not getting sued or disappeared, and so on. But there should still be some room left to care about appearance. Reading is already hard enough. You want to make the experience as seamless and enjoyable as possible for people sharing their time with you. And it is not just about how people see your work, it also shapes how they see you. A beautiful article or website tells them you care deeply about your craft.
We all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Yet, we do it anyway. We can’t help it, thanks to something called heuristics. You go to a supermarket, wanting to buy a bowl of plantain chips, and you are presented with several options. Without even realising it, your final choice is not random, nor is it decided entirely by rational considerations such as pricing and the list of ingredients. It is also influenced by how attractive you find the products.
You’ll understand this better when your article is published across multiple platforms. Do you find that you prefer sharing the link from one platform instead of the others? Why? I’ll tell you. It’s the same reason I often share links to my articles on Medium, even when I’ve published the same articles on my website, where they simply don’t look as delicious. And it is not just that one version is more beautiful than the other; it is because that attribute confers on it other weights that court a favourable disposition from the reader. They might, for example, be biased to think the article appears more credible and in-depth on one site. It would definitely also affect how much time they devote to consuming the piece.
I am not speculating. Different studies have shown a strong correlation between website design and reader perception or behaviour. A 2020 study by academics in the US found that “overall, people clicked on more articles and recalled more details included in the articles when they browsed a contemporary site compared to a classic site.” Using two mock news sites, the researchers had examined how people reacted to various site elements such as home page design, site layout, visual clutter, and prominence cues. Another study published in 2017 found that “removing article interaction facilities such as social media sharing, email and voting options” increased negative bias towards the news source, while the removal of advertisements and clickbait links improved positive bias towards the platform.
If you consider yourself a bare-bones journalist whose job is merely to report the facts and if you treat your work as nothing but a commodity, then this article is not for you. But if you aspire to something more magical, more impactful, you cannot cross into that realm without caring about the attractiveness of your creation. The fact that you are passionately creative in your approach to storytelling does not take anything away from your badge as a journalist.
As a reporter in the lower ranks of a newsroom, there is little you can do about how your story appears on the website beyond sourcing great images, making beautiful infographics, and preformatting them such that the story still looks decent if all the publisher does is copy and paste. But you could also pressure the editors and newsroom leadership. Tell them this is the vision you have for your story, and this is how it can be achieved. Ask them to consider redesigning the website.
When I was at the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), I contributed to discussions about adopting a more modern logo and brand (you can check out the old logo/website in 2018 versus the new one a year later). At HumAngle, in May 2022, I created and presented a 21-page slide deck arguing that the organisation should update its website fonts and proposing more legible alternatives with mock-up images (again, old look versus new look). Two years later, I led a brainstorming group that suggested updates for the website to make it look better, improve user experience, newsletter subscription rate, and accessibility, update stale copies, and replicate useful features from other platforms. Another conversation we had at HumAngle, when it was launched in 2020, was about Google Ads. Sometime in those early days, we started displaying ads on the website, and I hated how it looked. We eventually discussed the pros and cons and whether the money we were receiving or were likely to generate through that channel was enough to disregard the aesthetic compromise. Shortly after, the ads were removed (though another factor may have been considered), and the organisation has not looked back since.
You can also start the conversation wherever you find yourself. Talk to your colleagues and ask what they think. Rally like-minded troops, do your research, and present your arguments. Urge them to do a reader survey. If you can’t make it a priority, you can at least make it a nagging concern.
Some may argue that all this is just being joblessly pedantic about inconsequential details. After all, haven’t you seen the wonky graphics released by the billion-dollar company, Dangote Group, which look like they may have been designed using Microsoft Word? Isn’t it true that some of the most shitty-looking websites in Nigeria are also the most-visited? So, why is good design important?
One, popularity often constitutes an exception to the rule — just as in many outlier cases. If you are a famous writer, you can afford to break the fundamental rules of writing. There will be no consequences and you might even be applauded or worshipped. If you are a famous politician, you can probably get away with more than a few crimes. Some artists create shittier and shittier art because they become laws upon themselves; they become the standard, or at least an acceptable alternative. So, yes, Dangote’s graphics will reach a wide audience regardless of design quality, but this is no reason to be complacent. And even if you can afford to disregard the need for aesthetics because of how successful you’ve become, there are rooms you still won’t be able to enter unless you make an effort. (Again, except your ugly style is so fascinating that it’s become iconic and strangely intriguing, bending the taste of the world to itself.)
Besides, I think beauty should be treated as its own reward. As Shahidha Bari describes it, “beauty is more like a radical jolt that awakens us to the world.”
It may be argued that what is beautiful to one may not be beautiful to another, that there are objective beauties and there are sentimental beauties. Philosophers from Plato to Immanuel Kant have spent centuries ruminating on the question: is beauty intrinsic or assigned by an observer? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The most important thing is that you care enough to aim for it.
You should care about colours and contrast and clutter and poses and proportions and typography and texture and logos and lightening and branding and user experience and overstimulation or understimulation and harmony. Your work should awaken rather than dull the senses. This applies not only to the written word but also to documentaries, podcasts, and broadcasts. Be deliberate about design, whatever your role is. Mimic and learn if you can. Outsource if you must. But, please, give a shit.