For the third year in a row, the International Society for News Design has named Torstar Corporation’s weekly city newspaper The Grid one of the world’s best-designed publications.
In their remarks, judges called The Grid’s overall look “pleasingly jumbled” at first glance, but noted that its design is “deceivingly harmonious and smart, supported by a design grid that might be 7 columns, 5 columns or somewhere in between, but is always in the neighbourhood of hip.”
Judges said that The Grid’s combination of quick reads, alternative story forms and engaging infographics made it an ideal publication for the coffee shop or bar. “It might easily make you forget to look at your phone,” said the judges.
They also praised the publication’s use of colour to “shock, surprise and entertain” readers. “The Grid’s use of colour is likely one of the primary elements that sets it apart in the reader’s mind,” said the judges, but noted that colour was always secondary to the publication’s primary objective – to inform readers.
The Grid’s publisher and editor-in-chief Laas Turnbull told sister publication the Toronto Star on Wednesday that the publication will present a new-look publication April 10. “We get bored easily,” he explained.
According to TheStar.com, the revamped Grid will slim its tabloid dimensions and shift away from arts and lifestyle to more timely news. Turnbull told the Star that the new publication would strive to be a combination of a “hyper-local newsweekly and a glossy magazine.”
Postmedia’s flagship daily the National Post, along with Torstar’s Toronto Star and Gesca’s Le Soleil were also among the Canadian winners in various categories.
One of the Toronto Star’s five Awards of Excellence was for its front page the day after Toronto police chief Bill Blair told a press conference that police were in possession of a video that appeared to show beleaguered Toronto mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. The banner headline accompanying the story read: “It’s real, and Ford is in it.”
