With the goal of reinventing as a news organization for the digital age, The Globe and Mail introduced its redesigned newspaper this month. Its sales team is hoping new colour capabilities and glossy pages will lure in bigname advertisers, while the circulation department will watch buses and subways to see if the narrower format makes it more popular with commuters. We asked a few of our print- and design-savvy friends to give us their thoughts on whether it will work.
Barry Quinn, creative director, Juniper Park
“The volume of advertising may not have changed, but my perception is that there is more advertising, probably because there’s more colour. I’ve also noticed that the non-colour ads start to recede in comparison… The super white stock really pops off the shelf. It really has a vibrancy you didn’t get on the old sheet, but it’s a bit of a let down when you open up the A section and see it’s not all that bright white. The newsprint looks very gray in comparison, though that disappears as you flip past the first few pages… I’ll read The Globe and Mail app going into work in the morning because the subway tends to be busier. The new size may change that because it makes [the print version] easier to read. This version feels like it’s been made to travel. It feels like at this size, it’s easier to get through.
It feels like there used to be more, bigger stories in the past. You used to feel like you didn’t get through the whole paper, but with this you might think like you’ve read your way through it all, like you’ve made some progress. Does that make the paper seem less serious?”
Doug Bennet, publisher, MastheadOnline.ca and Graphic Monthly Canada
“I’m glad they’re investing in that [glossy] paper, although there are some technical problems with it. Darker images on the newsprint pages will bleed or ‘set off’ on the facing page. They may have figured that out though. In the Style section, they use [the glossy stock] throughout and it’s fantastic. The colours really look terrific for a newspaper. Their cue was more magazine design than newspaper design and they’ve achieved it in the lifestyle sections. There was a beautiful double-page ad for IKEA [in the first Saturday edition]. The Globe will be a competitor for advertisers in those categories… I think they really are fishing where the fish are.”
Claire Dawson, creative director, Underline Studios
“I like the colour photography, but they were pretty conservative in their use of colour in the design palette. They could have done more with that. It’s really just two colours, red and blue, so they didn’t get too adventuresome. I also like the new serifed font… We’re big admirers of European newspaper design and serif fonts are big there. It looks like that’s where the Globe is taking some of its cues. There’s more whitespace, which helps section out the pages.”
