peterong.com

Why do editors continue to believe they must squeeze as many words as possible into their newspapers? Don’t they read what research has found out – that readers are  having trouble reading small point sizes on newsprint?

Here’s proof – yet again – that they are struggling.

Bhutanese journalist Sonam Pelden shot this picture of an elderly man reading a paper with a magnifying glass on a bus ride in Berlin last week.

She tells me she has seen quite a few people doing that.

Readers of this blog will remember seeing a photo of an elderly man in Singapore doing the same thing.

The sad fact is that many newspapers totally disregard the ability of the elderly to read point sizes smaller than 9. In fact, many want to bring that down to 8 points!

Tags: Talking Paper // 1 Comment »

South Africans woke up Sunday morning to a new look City Press.

The Sunday English-language paper sports a new masthead, new names for various sections, a new colour palette, new typography and best of all, new content too.

Here’s how the new Page One looks.

As the designer for City Press, I have always believed that a new design is of little consequence if it is not accompanied by new approaches to the presentation of news and stories,  new ideas, new ways of using photography and graphics, etc.

Editor-in-Chief Ferial Haffajee and her team did not disappoint.

Here’s Ferial and I with some of the day’s pages in the background.

The new City Press is vibrant, with an exclusive story about how some party leaders are using their positions to enrich themselves leading the paper today.

There will be an emphasis on setting the media agenda, says Ferial, rather than following the pace.

The broadsheet now comes in five sections plus a tabloid lifestyle magazine which is simply called ‘7′ to signify the seventh day of the week and create a younger image.

Each of the sections open with a vertical section name that goes all the way down the left. The Opinion section has been renamed Voices, and this is followed by Business, Sports and Careers.

Here are some of the section fronts:

The striking feature of the section fronts is the vertical column down the left. Each has a huge initial: V for Voices, B for Business and so on.

First reactions to the redesign have been exceptionally good, with papers flying off the shelves at several agencies I visited this afternoon.

Ferial was delighted that hundreds of ordinary readers had emailed her to express their pleasure with the new look.

“Brilliant. Exciting. Colourful. Clean. Readable. I love it” were some of the comments she received from the readers. She was especially pleased that many top bosses, newsmakers and prominent citizens had also expressed their appreciation for the new design.

“The response has been phenomenal,” says Ferial.

A website, The Daily Maverick (www.dailymaverick.co.za), says the competition among the Sunday papers will be racheted up a notch with City Press’ new design.

Thanks, Daily Maverick, but there is an error in your report. I was not involved in the makeover of the New Straits Times or the Sydney Morning Herald.

Tags: Talking Paper // 1 Comment »

How often do you get a new newsroom? In fact, how often do you get a new newsroom in the process of a redesign of the paper?

Many newspapers tend to think a redesign is just that – a new look paper. But the few that are more forward looking look beyond the design.

City Press, a Sunday paper in South Africa, is being redesigned by me and is set to be relaunched on May 2.

The new newsroom was completed just a week ago, and together with it, a restructured editorial floor. Journalists have moved back from their temporary office, to oohs and aahs from other colleagues in the building in Johannesburg.

It’s colour-coded to identify the various sections.

I had recommended a structural change and Editor-in-Chief Ferial Haffajee was super keen to implement it from the word go! I’ve never worked with such enthusiasm bubbling from everyone in the newsroom!

Here is a picture of workers ripping out all the old carpets, knocking down walls, putting in new colour-coded furniture, paint and the lot!

All the offices where section editors used to sit, have been knocked down to create an open newsroom.

There are two main hubs. One is where all  the content producers will sit. This is what I call the Producers’ Hub and the other is the back end of the operation called the Production Hub.

The idea is to get all the producers talking to each other so there is little duplication, more coordination between the various sections, and ultimately a better newspaper.

With the Production Hub just at arm’s length away, there will be far better communication between the front office and the back room.

Here’s a photo of the new newsroom, with an area for brainstorming and chilling out if you need to.

An advertising campaign has already started, teasing readers with posters such as the one below. It has a huge question mark with a little map of Africa at the bottom. This is a teaser to the forthcoming masthead which has undergone a tremendous change.

The campaign is also on TV, radio and of course, in print.

Here’s how City Press looks today. Watch out for May 2 when the new look hits the streets.

Here’s a partial picture of what the new masthead  will look like come May 2.

A world of difference, surely!

Tags: Talking Paper // Add Comment »

PwC, the accounting conglomerate, spends well over US$250million each year on internal professional development.

The figure was cited in the Financial Times on Feb 22 in a story headlined: PwC finds the doctor knows best, which talked about PwC working with Duke University to help develop a training programme.

It brings into sharp contrast what newspapers are, or rather, NOT spending on training its journalists.

I know of many many newspapers around the world where training is not given its due attention. In fact, there are so many journalists who tell me they have never attended one single training course in their entire careers!

This is very sad indeed.

Newspaper editors ought to realise that training of journalists is of absolute importance if they wish to make their newspapers better.

Tags: Talking Paper // 1 Comment »

What’s in a name? Plenty if you look at these two stores in a mall in Johannesburg, South Africa.

On the left is a linen shop and two doors away is a bookstore. I’m sure the linen store owner deliberately used the name, but the bookstore? Hmmm….. I’m not so sure.

Tags: Africa Observer // 1 Comment »

Who do you go to when you think of queue management? Why, Disneyworld of course. They are masters of managing the zillions of people who line up at its amusement parks around the world, be it Los Angeles, Florida, Hong Kong, or Paris.

Queues are almost always orderly and extremely well-managed. And they move super fast too!

So who do you go to learn about design? Apple, of course. They have a Brit called Jonathan Ive who is the king of Apple’s design team. You know the rest of the story.

How about price increases?

I say McDonald’s can teach us newspaper people a thing or two about increasing prices without customers complaining.

Here’s how Maccas does it.

They spend a lot of money on TV advertising whenever they have something new on their menu. In case you have never noticed, these new burgers are always more expensive than the traditional Big Macs.

A brand new product, Angus beef burger, was launched recently here in Sydney for Australian $7.45 without the chips and Coke. A Big Mac medium sized meal is $6.45.

But people seem to love it. And lo and behold, the next time you buy a Big Mac, you can be sure the price will go up slightly.

No one will notice because they have been paying $7.45 for an Angus beef!

I’ve noticed that Maccas has been doing this by stealth for the past few years in Australia.

Perhaps newspapers can think of something like that?

Tags: Talking Paper // Add Comment »

I have said it many times before, but the relaunch of Rapport proves it yet again – readers don’t mind at all if you change your masthead.

This is the third week of the relaunch of the Sunday Afrikaans paper in South Africa, and so far, not one reader has complained about the new masthead.

Here’s the old masthead (left) compared to the new:

I used Girard as the typeface for the masthead and all the section titles.

I  have changed mastheads at all the papers I redesigned, and at every one of them, readers have not minded at all.

At Malayala Manorama, the world’s biggest vernacular language paper in India, I even made some changes to the traditional pair of elephants between the names. At Mid Day in Mumbai, the masthead was changed completely into a squarish one.  I even removed the hyphen between Mid and Day and a drawing of the sun on the old name.

In the state of Punjab in northern India, I changed the masthead of Punjab Kesari significantly and none of its more than 800,000 subscribers complained.

At Kuensel in Bhutan, I used a completely different typeface and got an artist to redraw the traditional dragon. Here’s the old and new compared.

Look at the dragon in particular. On the left you will see that there is a lot of detail in the dragon. The new one has fewer lines and the dragon scales have been removed.

Bhutanese love their dragons and even there, no one complained.

In fact, at most newspapers, the only people who think mastheads should not be changed are usually journalists who have been around for a long time. These are the old-school journalists who insist on the sanctity of mastheads.

How wrong they are! And have proven to be the case by millions of readers!

Tags: Talking Paper // 1 Comment »

Hundreds upon hundreds of SMSes and emails have poured into the Rapport offices complimenting the paper for the redesign.

One reader blamed the paper for a late dinner because “I spent all my time reading Sake (the business section).”

Another said he had not read the business section for 14 years but could not resist the reincarnated edition.

There were SMSes praising the use of typography, colours and design. One typical SMS was about how easy it was to read the paper, clearly referring to the typography. I had opted to use Farnham Text 9.5pt on 11pt leading, compared to the old Nimrod of 8.5pt on 10pt leading.

But of course there were complaints. The majority was about the TV listings, with older readers saying it was too small with two days’ listings in one page. Some did not like the magazine format of My Tyd, preferring the old A4 size. And strangely, a few did not like the bigger Blokraai, a kind of crossword puzzle.

There will be a few tweaks to the design in the next few days. Hopefully, there won’t be further complaints.

Tags: Talking Paper // Add Comment »

The new Rapport hit the streets quite a few hours ago. Some surprises. Some bewilderment. Some shock. Some disappointment. But plenty of wow!

Here’s a typical response: “I am blown away. The new Rapport is absolutely stunning. I absolutely love the vibrant colours and the white space. It is young, beautiful and sexy. I am sure it will attract many young readers.”

I spoke to someone who had just bought the paper from a newsagent in Rosebank, and his simple words were: “It’s a huge improvement.”

Believe it or not, this has been the smoothest relaunch of a newspaper redesign I have ever experienced. And I’ve had plenty.

Editor Liza Albrecht and her entire team,  Ryk van Niekerk and David van Rooyen and their gang at the Business section, Bokkie Gerber and Rudolph Lake (a good friend and golfing partner of Ernie Els) and their sports stars, Magda Swart and her magazine geniuses, Arlene Prinsloo, Jan Morgenrood and the team of designers, the photographers, reporters and the artists all did a magnificent job!

And of course my ever-dependent poet, designer extraordinaire and fashion icon, Adonis Durado, and designers Ariel and Rodolfo who helped me make this happen. Thanks too to Charles Apple the blogging supremo who helped me with the graphics department.

I have worked on the concept and the prototypes for the past five, six months and it is such a pleasure to see the birth of a new look – without the birth pains!

I started out with massive tests with the typography. You name it, I’ve tested it! And there were at least six incarnations of Rapport on my Macs.

BUT THE BAD NEWS: My internet connection is so bad I can’t upload any photos! Boo!!!

I will be putting lots of pages on flickr soon.

It has been an awesome experience working on Rapport. This is one super huge broadsheet, measuring 58 cm x 41cm. It’s like an Airbus A380 compared to a Boeing 737!

But what a fantastic canvas that makes. Huge photos, acres of white space and plenty of playground space for designers and artists.

A black-and-white photo on the front page of the serious Weekliks section would cover the top half of an American broadsheet.

I took advantage of the printing capabilities of the presses and turned Rapport into a symphony orchestra – broadsheet for the main section, Weekliks, Sports and Careers, tabloid for Sake (the Business section which used to be a broadsheet and pronounced sarker), Doen Dit (meaning Do It, a going out guide), and a magazine format for the former Tydskrif which we renamed My Tyd (My Time).

The colour palette was chosen to reflect South Africa, with plenty of red (a link to the old paper) and yellow which I seem to see wherever I go in the country.

Typography is limited to three families – an interplay of the various weights of Boomer and Farnham (both from Font Bureau) and Zine (from fontfont in Germany).

There were lots of fantastic stories in the launch issue. And zillions of superb ideas from all the sections.

I could see everyone was having fun. Can’t wait to see the circulation figures, but that will come next week. Will keep you posted.

That’s Jan and I with the Page 1 on the screen.

Here’s Editor Liza and I inspecting the first copies on the grass patch outside the printing press.

Tags: Talking Paper // Add Comment »

Millions of Afrikaaners are being infected by a fabulous jingle on television, humming and singing it in their bath-tubs, in the kitchen and at work!

The ditty is a part of a TV campaign to relaunch the national Sunday paper, Rapport, this Sunday (Oct 25). Here is the jingle on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdrB6Vat-jI

The jingle is a take-off from a 1950s Afrikaans song, Ou Ryperd (meaning Old Horse, ryperd rhyming with Rapport). The words were re-written to describe the new paper, and ends with the words “Be prepared. Oct 25″.

Rapport got a very famous singer, Kevin Leo, to sing the jingle aired on national TV.

Hundreds of full-page ads have also been placed  in Afrikaans broadsheets in the past two weeks with the same line.

There is certainly a buzz in the newsroom like they have never seen in decades.

Tags: Talking Paper // Add Comment »