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.
March 13th, 2009
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.
March 1st, 2009
