The Future of Newspaper DesignListThumbs
The Future of Newspaper Design
I saw this post today on core77 and I thought it was a great story to share it with our Abduzeedo readers. I'm sure you've all heard the notion that "print is a dying medium." Advertising in print is down, and seems to continue declining, because more people are going online to read content.
So what do we do? Do we just write Print's obituary and sit around remembering it fondly, or do we try to salvage it? A brand new daily publication in Portugal, simply titled i, is trying something new and they are getting positive results. i's circulation had increased from 11,000 in May to 16,000 in August.
So how are they doing it?
i is not structured like a traditional paper. The paper's team worked with media consultancy Innovation to come up with a new way to organise the product. "Our feeling was," said Figueiredo, who came on board at an early stage, moving from Diário Económico, "that people were not concerned about traditional sections any more. Traditionally, journalists have to fill a politics section even if there is nothing relevant going on in politics. We wanted to come up with something different." So the team came up with five key needs that they wanted the paper to address, with five key words.
A New Design
Apart from restructuring the content, they've also broken away from the traditional minimal design of a newspaper and they have gone for a more magazine-like approach.
Nick Mrozowski, i's American art director, said that "I think the overriding concept, not just in the design but in the newspaper as a whole, is that we want to try to set out to produce a magazine every day." The 56- to 64-page paper is tabloid size and stapled, so looks as much like a magazine as a newspaper.
A huge amount of work goes into designing the paper every day. At first, Mrozowski explained, the idea was that the paper would have a template that would leave some pages fixed each time, meaning that some pages would require no design work on a daily basis and that editors would simply put their content into the pre-designed format. "But from day one that strategy fell apart," he said. "We realised that the sort of paper we were making had a lot of very specialised content and each page would have to be custom-made to the needs of a reporter or editor."
Of course this appeals to me as a graphic designer but I wonder if this can become too much work to keep up with. By restructuring their content areas they were able to alleviate the need to fill up whole sections with worthless news, but now I feel that the pressure to deliver has been transferred over to the design aspect of the newspaper. Only time will tell if this proves to be the case. I really hope this newspaper continues to be successful. I hope it inspires other newspapers.
Read the full article on www.editorsweblog.org
This video is in Portuguese with English subtitles.
33 Comments
Thank you for posting this. As a former graphic artist at a newspaper (I was laid off this year) I really appreciate newspapers that are willing to take a risk. People (readers) care more about design than some people in the business are willing to admit.
This is great. Thanks for this!
I love this!!! I work editorial design and Im always looking for innovations in newspaper design, but never found much examples. It seems people are forgetting about print and press importance. We have to salvage it, even more if there are people who don't have a computer or Internet to reed the news. Thanks abduzeedo!
"i" is one of the best newspapers i've ever seen, in what comes to graphic creativity. Check it out if you can, it's really worth it. Just love its infography.
cool !
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http://hybrid-creation.deviantart.com/
Helvetica will save us!
Great post! It would be interesting to see some better designed newspapers.
ohh Portuguese newspaper, very nice :)
cool article indeed!
I found this very interesting. I myself still pick up a newspaper now and then (usually eating lunch) but the majority of articles I read are online. I really like the examples above especially the second to last. I wouldn't be able to walk by a newspaper article like and not pick it up.
Nice to know that it actually is a Portuguese newspapper. PROUD!
w0w , another good way of sending message to people, and i kinda agree with what he said, print iskidna dying
great post!
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http://lateant.deviantart.com/
I don't read Portuguese but I'd still pick up this newspaper if I saw it on the street.
Kristen your story is all too familiar. As a former Graphic Artist at a newspaper myself, I have seen many friends lose their jobs over the last 2 years. New thinking is needed by the so-called brain trusts running the papers. New Designs, Charge monthly fees for internet access to the news. If the Internet is what is killing you, use it to rebuild yourself!
wow, they are really inspiring me
I'm portuguese, and read "i" every day as like fresh air! Thanks a lot "i".
Oh Portugal!
I'm portuguese and i'm really proud to see this published in abduzeedo.
For those who want to visit they website, check http://www.ionline.pt
There is a guy from I think Poland, who turned newspapers there around and made them profitable simply by design. He gives a very interesting presentation about it that can be found on ted.com
That is indeed really nice what they're doing with their newspaper. Hats off for them! And now I'm thinking... the newspapers from today, they look exactly like the ones from 200 years ago. So... it's about time for a change :)
Here was an interesting take, which holds much merit:
Design can save the Newspaper Publisher (Proof) - video -
See:
http://graphicstart.com/viewarticle.php?articleid=292
im 20 now and i cant wait for the day that i can look at my kid as he sees a news paper from today for the first time and i can tell him "yeh pretty lame huh".
I don't like newsapers very much at all, i only use them for gift wrap and charcoal drawings. they are an eyesore, but a paper like this is really something that can never become boring or outdated. i really hope papers everywhere follow suite.
Newspapers an eyesore? Some of them are a typophiles dream…
Really nice article, im pretty much new media myself. But always respected the oldschool traditional media.
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http://www.buitenaardig.nl/
It looks beautiful, but yeah ... the amount of work that must go into it to lay everything out daily is staggering.
As a former newspaper art director, I see the demise of large circulation newspapers for the general audience, but there is still a large market for specialized newspapers (especially ethnic markets in large cities). But not everyone has a computer or access to them, and even though they can see some news on TV, there are still news that are only disseminated through newspapers (think births, deaths, weddings, quinceñeras, galas, etc.). Print is not totally dead, just changing to suit the times and new audiences.
Apart from restructuring the content, they've also broken away from the traditional minimal design of a newspaper.
I like the "always new & still fitting to the content" design approach! It's very common in scandinavia. I know severall big and small newspapers/magazines for young people that are made like that. (both the free junk that you get on the streets and papers that you pay for) - I worked as designer for a small one for two years! It's fun!
I like many love the feel of leafing through the newspaper on a lazy morning or over a solo lunch, the best thing new print and newspaper organizations could do is invent the "recycle"-old print new "ATM"-like machine as seen on Babylon 5 (Sci Fi TV series). That way I could take my old paper, deposit it in the machine, the paper and ink would be recycled and it would automatically give me the new days print (formatted not only with the format that I prefer, but the type of news that I am most interested in)
Barring that, give me a Linux (w/root access) smart hand-held (Nokia N800, N900) that will let me download my news and read without being connected to the Internet. Better yet, invent the virtual 3 dimensional screen ala PayCheck(2003) or give me a way to see it in my mind and mentally flip the pages ala Johnny Mnemonic(1995). Another option, via V(new TV series) is to have virtual pages appear in mid air in front of me, press to blow up, move, turn the page, etc...
I love the flexibility of Linux and the Internet, but sometimes there is nothing better than flipping through a physical newspaper.
A huge fail and the reason I stopped purchasing the Wall Street Journal, is not having on-line ALL the content that you have in the physical paper. I wanted to reference an article that I had read in the paper (I bought) against my on-line subscription(I bought also). Imagine my surprise when the print article was not available on-line. I canceled my Wall Street Journal subscription (both of them) the next day. How dare you attempt to limit me like that, I was very offended. Have not purchased a paper since and I loved the Wall Street Journal, the fact is there are alternatives and they lost my trust and along with my trust my business!
On-line should offer much, much more than any physical paper. Just look at software apps like Amarok that automatically pull in related content for you without you needing to ask and you understand the capabilities that are artificially limited for lame old school and out of date business reasons. Of course newspapers are not the only ones that make these types of mistakes...
The Cable companies and Wireless companies do the same thing via customer no-service business practices assuming we will not have alternatives except to go to another Cable company or another Wireless company. Huge Fail.
I have been Wireless FREE for over 4 years now because two different providers tried to stick me with charges that I did not make. One for calls to phone numbers I had never called over the past 7 years and the other due to improper software previsioning of their text messaging service (that I was paying a hefty extra $39.99 for specifically to avoid random, BS charges). They both tried to stick me with $500 - $800 bills for charges I was not responsible for. Can you say extortion, fraud, I can and did. 86ed em after attempting to fix via customer service and being sent to their "collections" department...big mistake, HUGE mistake! I have been laughing all the way to the bank With Skype VoIP service with a Total Cost of Ownership of ONLY $100 per year! Less than a 10th of what I was paying to the cellular companies each month.
And Cable companies, what is with the band-width shaping, throttling, deep packet inspection, anti-net neutrality BS, restricted services. If you guys do not pull it together, you will lose many, many more customers besides me. Its unforgivable in 2009, not to have unrestricted fiber Internet over the last mile to our homes...are you kidding us? Do you think we will forget and forgive?
We are yours to lose and you are seemingly going out of your way to piss us off. Hint: We are not moving to other Cable providers, we are leaving cable all together. Good luck trying to sell us additional services when we see no need to have a TV any more. Wake up or live with your regrets one day!
I would love to buy a newspaper, but how are you going to win back my trust and give me more flexibility as I have on the Web?
A new zeal for the print media.
Excited to note your observations on print media and online media.
I'm a graphic designer/copy editor/page designer for a newspaper in the Southeastern United States. We see it more and more here that print is falling apart before us. It's refreshing to see other countries making it work and other papers taking a giant leap in making the product look better to attract readers.
I run my own newsletter in my spare time that is designed to be a hybrid of a newspaper and magazine. I publish it online simply because I can't afford to print it. Printing costs are so outrageous these days that to do a 50 count run of a 25 page layout in color is almost $400 to $500.
I just hope things get better and people realize that newspaper are still important.
We should always appreciate the roots of any form of media but also understand that progress is not an enemy to be fought with. Newspapers are not in the same category as books as they fall into the 'single-serving' category and are thus as expendable as any web page. So would a user rather choose a single-serving in print or a single serving on a screen? It will all boil down to circumstances. And eventually, those decisions will force the newspaper companies to switch their game plan a la stop raising the amount of space devoted to advertising.
I guess this is the big issue for all forms of mainstream media, how to stay relevant and still make money? Perhaps a sleeker version of print, like above, is the only way to do this.
very interesting and nice article.
Hey...
Im Portuguese as well :D and was big surprise saw your article about Print paper and talking about "i" news.
Well i must say 4 things as a "i" reader:
1 - In august its the summer vacations and the new format of "i" journal helped a lot to take it to the beach.. More easy to read in this circumstances (normal they got best sells all young persons like me buy it).
2 - The Content is a kind not so boring and extensive as the old newspapers. People are creating some bad habits of reading more info´s without taking all morning reading long texts.
3 - Design is fresh.
4 - Talk more about the new web 2.0
resume. Its a young paper with young and serious content as well. Congrats for the review!
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