Baltimore Sun changes typefaces, apparently to match Tribune company in-house styles
A friend who’s aware I’m still tied up with family concerns this week writes:
I don’t know if you’ll ever want to blog about Tribune again after what happened last week, but it’s food for thought all the same.
Heh. Oh, we’re interested, my friend. Whaddya have for us?
Noticed today that the Baltimore Sun redesigned, and not in a good way. Today’s A1 mentions new type styles “to improve readability,” but they just adopted Chicago’s typefaces.
That’s Saturday’s front on the left; today’s on the right:
Our correspondent writes:
They got rid of almost all their color, though, and simplified the flag. And from the way they put A1 together, it looks like they laid off the A1 designer, too.
Allentown seems to have simplified, too.
And so it goes. Tossing out last year’s brand-new typography in favor of the new corporate cookie-cutter approach.
Here’s hoping these guys know what they’re doing.
May 11th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Thanks for the information on this. Out of curiosity, I looked at a copy of the Sun at a CVS in downtown D.C. Actually, I inadvertently picked up three copies of the paper, thinking I was holding only one. That’s how thin the paper was: A 16-page A section and a 12-page B section. That was it. The 25,000-daily I worked for in central Pennsylvania had more meat on its bones than that even when we complained about how corporate was screwing us. Turns out the early 2000s were indeed the good old days.
I’m beginning to wonder if the best thing that could happen to the cities that are saddled with Tribune papers is that the company go into Chapter 7 liquidation. That would clear those markets for new owners with different business models — if not immediately, as soon as the economy recovers enough to strengthen the ad market and get credit and investment capital flowing. Is there anybody who hasn’t drunk the Sam Zell Kool-Aid who thinks at this point these papers can be saved from this death spiral? If so, I’d love to read how under current management.
May 12th, 2009 at 12:17 am
But are column sigs still full-body shots? I personally don’t need to see Kevin Cowherd — or any other columnist anywhere — below the neck.
May 13th, 2009 at 4:47 am
Certainly lost something in the new approach or look. More heavy-handed and less sophisticated.
May 13th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Charles,
Great blog, a daily must-read for news “geeks” (and that’s a cool thing).
Tribune did the same thing in Allentown. The Morning Call now looks like a local version of the Chicago paper, which isn’t terrible… but shows an awful lack of foresight. If the powers in Chi-town wanted to have a uniformed look for the cost-saving purpose of sharing pages, etc., why didn’t they implement this formula in the first place? We were only now getting used to all the over-Zellous T6 designs. Sadface.
Mike
May 13th, 2009 at 3:56 pm
The Tribune paper here in our state hasn’t switched typefaces to match Chicago. So some pages look different, like the baseball page or an occasional wire page. I asked a friend — non-newspaper guy and baseball fan — if he had noticed anything different. He said no, hadn’t noticed a thing.
May 14th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I agree with Mike. Surely someone knew this uniformity was at least a possibility, so why waste the time, money, manpower and hype on the redesigns in the first place? Seems like further evidence of the short-sightedness of the Zell-ots. So much for innovation. Cookie-cutter pages for everyone!
May 19th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Makes you yearn for the Lucie Lacava redesign a few moons ago.