“Editorial Design, is it a social science?”

I am currently doing my master in Editorial Design Utrecht School of Arts. I find that Editorial Design as a name of a study program is somewhat still not popular yet. When I introduce myself and my major of study, I often been asked what Editorial Design means. With my background working in a newspaper, some people thought that I’ve turned my path and decided to continue my study in a social science related to journalism. It is obviously a design program from the last word, but if we had just heard it from a person we met and didn't listen carefully, we won’t have much chance to think. Sometime people just capture the most noticeable and appealing word in the phrase. In this case, to some people, the word editorial has influenced their mind more.

Worked as a graphic designer in newspaper, the term Editorial Design attracted me the most. Since the word editorial related closely with news expression, my first impression about editorial design is that it will explore and analyze design structure on representing news in media.
But apparently it has more broad and wider scope.







On the Mahku website, editorial design is described as:
An interdisciplinary course concerned with structuring information for publication media. In general terms, Editorial Design is the craft of organizing complex assemblages of information into a meaningful and accessible multiplicity, balancing function (the interface aspect) and aesthetics (the expressive aspect).

Furthermore, honestly, I never really sure about how the editorial design differs from graphic design since both try to communicate information using text and images. But I guess editorial design is simply graphic design which try to emphasize more on publication media with its title.