In a time when print journalism is withering away and plenty of newspapers have been pressured to close off their presses, it’s a thrill to see one of many oldest newspapers within the nation proceed to thrive. Based in 1829, The Philadelphia Inquirer is the third-longest constantly working each day newspaper in America, and its printed version remains to be going sturdy. The truth is, The Inquirer’s bodily presence is stronger than ever, because of a contemporary new redesign courtesy of Pentagram.
Pentagram labored intently with The Inquirer on the paper’s first editorial redesign in practically 30 years, with Pentagram Associate Luke Hayman on the helm. The completed product is crisp and clear, with web page templates simple for each Inquirer readers and employees to navigate. To be taught extra about this old-school entity’s new look, we requested Hayman about his staff’s course of under.
What was the transient that The Philadelphia Inquirer got here to you with?
From the start, they wished to deal with the print, as a result of the print had been uncared for for fairly some time. The latest initiative there over the previous couple of years— for apparent causes— was to get the digital facet of what they have been doing up to the mark, so numerous effort and time was spent on fairly a pleasant web site. However they realized a few issues— new management got here in, led by Lisa Hughes, who was a former writer of The New Yorker, so she’s actually refined specifically about design and typography, and the way the visible facet of the model actually holds a number of media and a number of platforms collectively.
Coming from that background, Lisa noticed how disparate the visible elements of The Inquirer have been throughout their new web site and their previous newspaper, which hadn’t been up to date in years. So the transient was to take a look at the newspaper once more and, whereas we have been at it, ensuring their core model belongings and visible toolkit have been good.
How did you begin tackling this challenge?
We went straight into the newspaper, which hadn’t been up to date for a very long time. The difficult factor was, similtaneously doing a whole redesign, they have been doing a whole makeover of all of their know-how. They have been on actually previous techniques, which made it actually arduous to alter something. They used numerous legacy processes with individuals doing issues in very backwards methods, so there was numerous revamping that took numerous time and power.
Lisa understood that numerous the visible id of a publication lives within the typography and the typefaces, in order that was the place to begin. With Henrik Kubel of A2-TYPE in London, we created this pretty suite of show fonts and textual content fonts. As soon as we did this— and there was lot of rationale behind the entire fonts that we selected— we went into the archives and historical past. We had this proposal for the newspaper, however the web site was a very completely different visible language, so we had to assist them a bit of bit on-line too. We didn’t redesign the web site, however we actually made some modifications to the navigation, the homepage, and a few of the different key pages. Most significantly was ensuring the typefaces carried throughout print and digital.
I might think about that the legibility of a bodily, printed newspaper is of the utmost significance, particularly when contemplating an older demographic of readers. How did you all deal with this accessibility?
We have been actually cautious about sort sizes and X heights and readability and area. Henrik Kubel had finished a number of newspaper fonts earlier than; that’s one of many causes we labored with him. We had a great consciousness of greatest practices, and being cautious about decisions.
Typography is clearly a very powerful consideration in newspaper design, however what different components are a important a part of the equation?
Newspapers get put collectively in a matter of hours, so the design could be very templated; it’s all primarily based on a grid, so creating techniques that have been sleek and versatile sufficient to accommodate completely different sorts of tales and pictures was tremendous necessary. We didn’t reinvent the wheel or something— we have been following greatest practices of newspapers. We constructed a grid in order that they may put tales collectively in a short time; it’s very modular. It’s extra difficult than numerous newspapers as a result of it’s a broadsheet, so typically they’ll have 4 tales on a web page, and that turns into fairly a puzzle. Whereas numerous newspapers have gone all the way down to smaller, tabloid codecs, and so they primarily get one story per web page.
We did these very basic items that I believe will assist readers and supply construction to the entire newspaper, like creating these entrance pages of sections. For Sports activities, Enterprise, Information, Meals, Way of life, Actual Property, Well being, we wished to make it clear to readers that they have been in a brand new part. So every part had its personal colour, had its personal masthead, and banner on the prime of the web page so that you just clearly noticed it was the entrance of a bit, which wasn’t as clear earlier than.
Contemplating how drastically the newspaper business has modified during the last decade or so, with so many publications downsizing or folding altogether, how did it really feel to work on this challenge specifically?
I’ve numerous romantic ideas round journalism and newspapers and the way necessary they’ve been. It’s been scary to see how the monetary mannequin of newspapers has been gutted by the digital world, so it was a vital challenge to us. The Inquirer is basically lucky to have been purchased by the Lenfest Institute, which is a basis that’s funded by of us who take journalism and the press very severely. They’re involved about these hedge funds and personal fairness firms shopping for up a lot of newspapers in our nation and gutting them.
I’ve labored on a few newspapers earlier than. I discovered most of what I learn about editorial design from Simon Esterson in England, who’s a really well-known editorial designer in Europe. I simply love newspapers for the medium, for the size, for the texture and the odor of them, and the best way tales work collectively, and the feel and the complexities of typography, and the hierarchy of storytelling on this medium, which could be very completely different from digital. So it’s that form of ardour for the craft, and the size, and physicality of it, and the significance of what newspapers do, or did, or ought to do.
What facet of this challenge are you proudest of?
Having the ability to fee a whole suite of fonts that come from the archives, diving into the historical past of one of many oldest newspapers within the nation, and bringing them updated. Having that be the inspiration for the visible language was an actual win. There are many fonts which you could purchase which might be rather a lot cheaper than commissioning a brand new one, however they noticed the worth in that and supported it, so I believe that was an additional particular cherry on prime to have the ability to try this.
Associate: Luke Hayman
Undertaking staff: Shigeto Akiyama, Laura McNeill, Avery George
Collaborators: Lisa Hughes, Writer and CEO; Gabriel Escobar, Editor; Elizabeth Samet, Artistic Director; Suzette Moyer, Design Director; Henrik Kubel / A2-TYPE, customized typeface design;
Charles Nix, further typographic analysis
