Mexico and Central America have a strong visual journalism, talented illustrators, extraordinary infographic artists and award winner publications. Society for News Design (SND) is happy and proud to have one of the most talented visual journalists as member of Region 11 (Mexico and Central America). Alexandro Medrano is newly appointed SND regional director to oversee, manage and secure the best representation in the design industry that Region 11 rightly deserved.
Medrano’s professional life is a successful and inspiring story. Everything he touches became, not to literally say gold, but a successful case. His appointment as regional director will open doors to a myriad of opportunities for visual journalism in the region. Please feel free to contact Medrano to be part of his projects.
In our interview with Medrano, he shared with SND some of his thoughts on visual journalism.
How did you first encounter SND?
I first got to know about SND in 1989, through all the books that the design group had, when I first started working at the newspaper El Norte, in Monterrey, Mexico. From that moment, I dreamed of being part of what I saw in that book.
How has your involvement with SND helped you grow professionally or personally?
Seeing and receiving information from the SND always raised my parameters of what I could accomplish, it constantly forged my spirit of constant improvement, motivated me and imposed me the mission of taking my career beyond what had been seen. The SND always pushed me to be better.
What are you most looking forward to in your new role as regional director (Region 11, Mexico-Central America)?
I seek that each of the members and interested people in region 11 become leaders in their own spaces. It’s my aspiration to tell and show that in every environment the presence of designers is a construction factor for the growth of any company.
Expose the direction and tendency in which the world provides tools, and allows to feed their vision.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Somebody once told me: “If you set yourself limits, you’ll be leaving aside what you love most about life”.
Who was your mentor or source of inspiration?
Every night before I go to sleep, I think about the things I do and hope that they help me build a legacy to transcend. I’ve always wanted to see my name written and underlined in the pages.
I’m inspired by the support I get from the company and the team that’s with me on this.
What is one design tool you couldn’t live without and why?
My essential tool is having a thought structure that involves transformation and inclusion where everything is possible and achievable.
What skill do you recommend news designers pick up in 2017?
There’s a cliché phrase that says “Rules are made to be broken”, if people did that more often, we would be a much more successful industry.
I would recommend applying in print all that they see in publicity, to apply to radio what they saw in the internet, and so on. Share knowledge, learn and apply it.
Who applies tend to go higher that who only reads and memorizes.
If you weren’t an Art Director/Visual Journalist, what do you think your career path would have been?
There are several things that I would have loved to be, test pilot, farmer, engineer in dark sciences, I don’t know what, but I am happy with what I am doing now.
Alexandro Medrano is the Innovation and Strategic Planning Director for Grupo Imagen.
Awarded with more than 300 international awards for design, journalism, scenography and online contributions. He is one of the most conferred editorial designers in Latin America.
Recently he has collaborated with Strategic Planning, Workspace construction, as well as the scenery for the news-casting center for Grupo Imagem new facilities.
Achievement for Grupo Imagen 2 Bronze medals at the Promax BDA 2017 regional and World competitions for the scenography of the Imagen TV and Excelsior TV forums over globally recognized companies such as CNN and Al Jazeera this turns their work into the category of news As the best in the world.
In this same year he received Honorable Mention for the competition of Newcast Studio as Study of the year and also for his lighting design. To this are also joined the 4 world nominations in Promax BDA.
His work in publishing design has been recognized as a worldwide trend by WAN IFRA (World Association of Newspaper). For Excelsior, he has won more than 230 awards among which he received the World Best-Designed Award, given by the Society for News Design (SND), on its 33rd edition in 2012. In February 2013, he was part of the International jury for the 34th issue of SND’s selection of the Best Designed Newspapers in the world.
His functions within Grupo Imagen include radio, television, internet and print. Among multiple disciplines he handles editorial design, TV design, Internet design, construction of media, animation, stage design, strategic planning, innovation, technology applied to the transmedia, among others.
Contact Alexandro Medrano @alexandromedran