Relaunching Al Watan

By Ryan Bowman
April 28th, 2009 at 05:26pm
Design, Media, Newspapers

I am now officially fluent in newspaper Arabic.  I can speak about columns, fonts, positioning, stories and bylines.  I know the word for ghost (because photo cut-outs shouldn’t float like them), and for gigantic (because headlines always needed to be bigger).  I even have a handle on the various hand gestures Arabic folk tend to pepper their conversation with. Its an eccentric vocabulary to be sure but its also the definition of useful.  Drop me into any Arabic newsroom in the world and I would be totally fine.  Just don’t ask me to order food or talk to a real person.

I learned my sprinkling of the language in the newsroom of Al Watan, the liberal-leaning national newspaper in Saudi Arabia and our first Arab language client.  Al Watan is 10 years old.  When it launched in Saudi, it changed the face of newspapers.  In the past 10 years, the other newspapers in the country haven’t so much evolved as copied the innovations of Al Watan.  The idea behind the current project was to push the Al Watan 10 years ahead of the pack.  Again.The overall project was split into two parts.  The first was technical and skills oriented.  Our friends at Human Capital (especially Tim Ewington and Zadok Prescott) and I spent more than two weeks helping with the transition from Quark to Indesign CS4 ME and training a large and relatively inexperienced design staff in both the new program and the basic design principles that underpin the basis of the new look (including the use of photography, color, structure, etc).  The second was about finally introducing that new look, nurtured for months and put through severe editorial scrutiny, focus groups and print tests, to the world.

It was a daunting learning curve, not only designing from right to left but basically relearning typography from scratch and coming to terms with not being able to speak or read the language.  This final limitation was probably the hardest for us, we Shakeup Medians pride ourselves on our literacy and special relationship with words.  After all, we are, all of us, readers and writers first (and by training) and designers second.

Still Ellen and I spent weeks learning about the vagaries of Arabic typography (with lots of help, thank you Nadine and many many others) and, after all that, decided we wanted nothing more than make our own.  So we did.  Or, more precisely, the wonderful and wonderfully talented Pascal Zhogobi, one of the most exciting young Arabic typographers working today, did, with only the slightest of direction from us.  The new font, Al Watan Headline is the core of the new design.

Like many of Pascal’s fonts, Al Watan Headline is inspired by old Arabic hot metal type workshops found in Lebanon and across the Arabic world.  Pascal’s genius is an ability to combine traditional forms with a modern and young flair.  Its like a hot pink bowler; classy and traditional but unmistakably modern.  We used the Linotype classic Yakout for body type and TheSansArab by Lucas Fonts for various secondary labelling.

We instituted a number of modern newspaper techniques, including a three layer headline system; colorful photo-based pull quotes; prominent sidebar and background boxes; color coded sections; a series of L-shaped front pages that allow loads of display space without interfering with the sanctity of the news area; larger, more dynamic, better cropped photographs; more vertical pages; spreads that don’t interfere with each other; better infographics;  and many many other things….

The biggest change, though, was the conversion of Al Watan from a paper that strived to be comprehensive above all else to an edited newspaper that strives to tell readers what is important and why. Of course much of the credit for this is should go to the editorial staff at Al Watan, particularly the Editor Jamal Khashoggi and his deputies plus the talented former BBC and Al Hayat journalist the paper brought in to help with the editorial side of the relaunch, Youssef Khazem.

The new paper is split in to two bodies.  News, Opinion and Sport in the first body with Business, Life and Culture in the second. See below for photos from the relaunch and some sample pages.

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New Gulf Times pages

By Ellen Carpenter
March 13th, 2009 at 06:30pm
Design, Media, Newspapers

Most newspapers follow a fairly predictable trajectory in the days and weeks following a relaunch. The inevitable minor flaws of the first day’s paper are ironed out under intense collaboration between newspaper staff and the relaunch team. For a few days the resulting paper steers a course close to the designers’ vision. When the design team goes home, however, and the initial enthusiasm for the new approach wanes in the face of the day-to-day scrum of putting together a paper, old habits often creep back. Corners begin to be cut, new procedures fall by the wayside and a steady decline in quality begins.

Which is why the newspapers coming out of the Gulf Times offices two weeks later are so impressive. The staff are still putting together a paper that is vastly more accessible and appealing than in its previous incarnation, due to the following factors:

1.    Pages that are better organised due to a clear hierarchy of stories and a strong focus to each page.
2.    More effective use of pictures to provide visual contrast and interest.
3.    Use of page furniture – drop quotes, break-out boxes, graphics – to create story packages that strengthen the hierarchy and provide multiple entry-points to a page.
4.    Clear section and story labelling that aid in navigation, through the paper and around the page.

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The Gulf Times looks different

By Richard Addis
March 1st, 2009 at 02:22pm
Design, Magazines, Media

There’s nothing like relaunching a newspaper. Some hate it. I love it — the moment when the whole sand castle is threatening to dissolve in a heap before the oncoming waves of chaos with about one hour to go to deadline is my favourite — and remember vividly each newspaper relaunch that I’ve been involved in (now, quite a few).

Whereever the country, whatever the language, and however different the scale, newspaper relaunches have many common features. There is always the shock when the new look is presented to the staff, the barrage of questions about details, the dreary trudge of training, the (misguided) optimism on the day when the early pages turn out to be easier than expected, the frenzy around ninety minutes before final press time when the largest number of pages are being cleared at once and the exhausted, glazed faces round the monitor when the final pages limp past the finishing line.

There is always the rush of relief when the presses start and everyone realises that there will be paper on sale the next day, just like every other day for past ten, twenty, hundred years. There is always the instinct to party and journalists will usually find a way.

And there is always the thrill of seeing the first copies after a couple of hours of sleep, always glistening and new, if never quite as perfect as hoped.

There is a new look Gulf Times today. The story in today’s paper is here and I’ll add some pictures when back in the UK. We at Shakeup have been working on it on and off for over a year, so it is an exciting culmination of much thought and planning. The relaunch was no exception to the process above: we went through every stage last night.

The result today? Pretty good by any comparison. The main thing is that the paper overall looks absolutely transformed - a dramatic change of key. It has pulled off the extremely difficult balancing act of looking dazzlingly new and confidently settled at the same time. (Credit to our very own design genius Ryan).  The myriad of small errors do not detract badly from the overall effect They will be fixed in the next three days.

The Gulf Times is Qatar’s biggest English language daily, seven days a week. Neil Cook, the editor, has sure-footedly driven the entire process. A British import — he is ex-FT, very experienced — he knows what he is doing. His editing team picked up InDesign in a couple of days and only had a very few days to learn the new styles. In such circumstances they have all done amazingly well.

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The seven key factors of good newspaper design

By Richard Addis
February 26th, 2009 at 03:51pm
Design, Newspapers

Sitting in Tallinn last week with an excellent bunch of art directors and a large pile of papers (all in Estonian), design principles became more abstract. Not understanding the stories served to highlight the visual principles at work. And it reminded everyone just how universal really are the rules of making a good newspaper.

So, with thanks to my fellow judges, here is what emerged from my notes: the seven secrets of news design.

1. Layout — including strong story hierarchy, building the page from the centre outwards, building in proper contrast and vibrancy to the page, thinking in spreads, sticking to a grid and using space to led the whole thing breathe
2. Pictures — including the use of horizontal and vertical contrast, variety of depth, bold cropping and occasional use of a mild tilt to add interest to an otherwise worthy image.
3. Type — including the adherence to a strict hierarchy of weights/sizes and a deliberate contrast between short, shy labels and longer, fuller headlines
4. Colour — including restraint in use of half-tones and tints and careful preparation of a systematic and logical palette
5. Navigation — including a system of colour coding, labelling and cross-referencing and a strong method of building and differentiating story packages on news pages
6. Packages — including a simple set of furniture for building story packages: subsidiary stories, sidebars, pull-quotes, graphics and photos
7. Graphics — including a clear distinction between info-graphics (graphs and charts) and illustration (photo-montages and drawing) but with a recognition that both skills are essential to great newspaper design

If these areas were properly managed, we all agreed,  the proof of the pudding would be in the reading. The result would be a newspaper that was absolutely user-friendly, consistent and (most important of all) interesting.

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A newspaper toolkit for developing countries

By Richard Addis
February 24th, 2009 at 01:31pm
Media, Newspapers

One of those flurries of work travel (Estonia, Qatar) on top of recent trips to Africa, has convinced me of a need that we at Shakeup would be keen to supply. Can anyone think of way to publicise it … and possibly to fund it from aid money or development grants so that it could be a free service to publishers?

Working on newspapers in developing countries is inspiring because they are generally delivering a demonstrable benefit to society: spreading information and exposing corruption in places where there’s a massive need and where there are no alternative independent mass communications (broadband, patchy; TV, a government mouthpiece; radio, light entertainment).

Often these papers are founded by courageous individuals (such as Hans Luik in Estonia or Charles ‘Mase’ Onyango-Obbo in Uganda) who subsequently become powers in the land but are not (and never especially wanted to be) expert newspaper publishers. Hostile governments and nervous advertisers add to their financial pressures. Insecurity makes it difficult to retain skills and develop staff. The newspaper suffers. The public are let down.

Like doctors visiting field hospitals where bad practices are needlessly putting patients’ lives at risk, we visit newspapers where rivers of scarce cash are wasted on needless faffing around and where there is next to no idea about how to organise a newsroom, commission, edit and design a good newspaper or market a title to its natural readership.

This hurts. It hurts because newspapers always matter and they matter especially in developing countries. And it would be relatively easy (or at least not impossible) to double some of these papers’ efficiency and double their quality at the same time, creating a better media and a secure independent sector.

So here’s the idea:  a publisher’s toolkit, like an IKEA house, with everything you need in one box to run a clever, modern, successful newspaper. We’d give them basic, good design; decent fonts; work-flow management systems; the latest indesign software; newsroom layouts; production plans; marketing rules and a daily editorial schedule. One from a pool of senior editors and publishers would be on hand to help install the toolkit — which could be a complete or partial replacement of an existing operation.  And once installed, it would be adapted and individualised of course to fit the special requirements of the title in question. 

In my conception, this would be a free service for anyone in a developing country who was running an independent newspaper that was doing its best to tell the truth.

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A thought provoking encounter

By Richard Addis
February 21st, 2009 at 05:18pm
Media, Newspapers

In The Snail – Tallinn’s hidden gem — a fascinating couple of hours with Priit Hobemagi, editor-in-chief of Eesti Ekspress, and Hans Luik, the founder and owner.

They run the “New Yorker” of Estonia…well, not really, but it is weekly, it aims high and it specialises in long pieces of reportage and investigation.

It is not rolling in cash but it is surviving — though some pretty aggressive commercialism being (near enough) Berliner format newsprint wrapped in several glossy pages of (mainly) advertising.

This, in a country of less than 1.5 million people where 400,000 of them are Russian speakers and therefore not in the market for an Estonian weekly, seems remarkable.

Hobemagi and Luik are entirely matter-of-fact about their success. First, they only print content that is original work and exclusive to them. Second, they only print what you cannot get from any other publisher in Estonia: high quality story telling, long-form journalism, eye-witness features and in-depth exposes.

They are dimissive about any information that is freely available anywhere - sports, news, weather etc. “Why bother competing?”. They reckon anyone of influence in Estonia has to read Eesti Ekspress every week, which attracts advertisers.

And they are reviewing their policy of putting the complete edition on the web on the day of publication in favour of delaying it by a couple of days or erecting at least a thin veil around it by asking for full registration details before giving away content for nothing.

The believe they are making something valuable and unique, selling it for a decent price and creating a clear channel for advertisers.

How delightful it was to hear the confidence they had evolved over two decades of publication in such a sensible journalistic model. And how impressive that they are able to publish the sort of journalism in a tiny country that we, in a far larger and richer country, don’t seem to be able to afford.

It slightly made me wonder: are we overstating the media revolution? Do we perhaps have too many excitable visionaries and media eggheads in London for our own good? How many hundreds of media businesses are quietly humming along in the UK, like Eesti Ekspress in Tallinn, and will do for many years to come?

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An Estonian publisher explains Russian journalism

By Richard Addis
February 21st, 2009 at 10:10am
Media

The reporter goes to see a businessman and says: “For five thousand dollars I will do a piece about your business”. The businessman pays up and the reporter writes a piece.

The reporter takes it to the editor who says: “For three thousand dollars I will publish this piece”. The reporter hands him the money.

The editor looks at the piece and contacts the businessman’s main competitor in the market and says: “For seven thousand dollars I can prevent this nice piece about your competitor from being published”.  The competitor pays. The article is spiked. The editor returns three thousand dollars to the reporter. The reporter returns five thousand dollars to the original businessman.

End result: the reporter has made nothing. The newspaper has made seven thousand dollars. One businessman is happy. The other has ended up no worse off than he started.

This purely illustrative example was told to me last night in The Snail, a restaurant in Tallinn, by the Estonian Richard Branson, a major media owner throughout eastern Europe.

He lived under the Soviet yolk until Estonia was liberated in 1992; Tallinn is only a day’s journey from St Petersburg and Estonia is still has a 30% Russian population. I do not think that he was joking.

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How to avoid selling your soul

By Richard Addis
February 12th, 2009 at 10:46pm
Media, Newspapers

Blogging - and indeed all other activity except breathing - had to stop for a while because a book deadline was pressing and chapters had to be handed in.

It is a fascinating book not in the slightest because I am involved but because it outlines the thoughts of Stephen Green, the chairman of HSBC, one of the few bankers to emerge with a reputation unspoilt by recent events.

Penguin are publishing it in June so I will not give away too much at this stage. But as I emerge from the cell where I work, blinking, back into the light, here is what I have been thinking about.

Six ways to avoid selling your soul:

1. Integrity: based on honesty and trust and a real desire to exchange value for value
2. Relationships: treat others as ends as well as means
3. Ambition: aim to contribute the most, not get the most
4. Balance: four areas; family, work, friends and the inner life
5. Leadership: treat everyone as a leader
6. Direction: What value is what I do? Why am I doing it and not someone else?

And not just one at a time. All six at once.

Meanwhile, looking around me once more, I see that everything has become worse.

Many more have lost their jobs. Print has been declared deader than ever. More titles are teetering on the edge of closure.

And yet…there are some great ideas bubbling through. More soon.

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Why Murdoch is the story behind the Standard

By Richard Addis
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:42am
Media, Newspapers

Lebedev is not really the story. Murdoch is.

Page eleven of the Murdoch-owned London Paper today gives us a clue to how he — and therefore his senior staff — are thinking.

In a full page victory memo from the London Paper’s editor it says, in so many words, that:

1. The London Paper has killed the Standard as a serious paper
2. Murdoch’s strategy forced Rothermere to sell
3. The Standard lost the plot
4. The Standard will henceforth be a minor, eccentric player on the London stage
5. The London Paper is projecting fat profits in the future
6. London Lite has lost its raison d’etre (to defend the Standard)

Murdoch is thrilled by the turn of events. With his son-in-law watching over the development of The Standard in the next few years it is unlikely to become too troublesome. I would not be surprised if it is sharing office space and printing facilities at Wapping in three years and three days from now (once contractual guarantees with Associated have expired).

Next move from the Australian fox? To decapitate Metro. Do not be surprised to see the London Paper produce a morning edition and bid for the valuable tube distribution rights in London when they come up later this year.

Perhaps it is a bit childish to think like this, but in macho competitive terms this story is game, set and match to Murdoch.

For Associated it looks dangerously like a tipping point — the year when they started losing. It used to be part of the DNA of Associated to win. Without that ferocity, the company starts to look rather sad, like a non-violent lion.

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Why does Lebedev want it?

By Richard Addis
January 21st, 2009 at 09:06am
Media, Newspapers

Protection.

You are safer in Moscow if you own something in London.

And The Standard is much cheaper than a football team.

As for what he should do now that he has acquired it - see earlier post

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