The Observer (UK) redesign
Here in the UK The Observer (Sunday paper c.342,467) has had a redesign and a rethink - all completed in about six weeks and with a limited staff.
Gone are various pull-out sections like Travel and Business and, unfortunately, the excellent music and sport monthly magazines, and instead we have a beefed up main paper, a sport section, the New Review section and The Observer magazine.
Led by creative director Carolyn Roberts, they’ve kept the masthead and the main headline display font - Mercury. In the previous Mario Garcia design, Mercury Display was working with Whitney and Stainless, but the team now felt that both were a bit dated.
They introduced a new sans face called Prelo Sans, together with the slab serif part of the family, Prelo Slab - fonts which are high in legibility but also with character.
They also refined the colour palette, making each section feel cleaner and perhaps more sophisticated, calmer and measured.
The primary change to the package was to enhance the New Review, the arts/features section.
It’s the same Berliner format as the main paper and sport, but is printed on heavier newsprint. They adopted some magazine design approaches here to mark a difference from this section and the main paper and to give the reader something expansive and attractive to keep for the week.
This is a real winner in terms of standing out from a crowded Sunday market. No one has tried this and I like the idea. My Sunday’s are usually quite busy so I don’t have a lot of time to read, so this heavier stock can hang around for the week and still be in good nick. With its more magazine feel to it, is very well done. The standard has been kept up too over the past few weeks, even with a depleted staff.
More comment and pictures over at the MAGCULTURE blog here.
Personally, I think they’ve done a great job, I just hope the circulation drop slows down so it’s with us for a lot longer.
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