Format ideas that mark a top newspaper

Form and function combine in the sections of Portuguese newspaper ‘i’, which will collect the European Newspaper Award in April of this year. Content-driven design is a stand-out, with ‘i’ reshaping ideas about how news should be delivered to readers. ‘i’ (short for “informação”) was launched in May 2009, and has already won praise as the “best designed newspaper in Portugal and Spain this year.” Editor-in-chief Martim Avillez Figueiredo says the design process started with market research: “It confirmed what we had already suspected,” he says. “Newspapers are no longer something that people regard as friendly to use on a daily basis. They have lost their deepness and their capability of showing the real news. “Daily newspapers are not guiding the reader to all the different kinds of news sources that are available today, like online news, websites, TV channels, radio, and SMS. Our research showed us that those were the main problems newspapers are facing, so we created a product to address those specific problems.” The newspaper’s ‘design manifesto’ describes the redesign as content-driven …offering quality and compelling information in an attractive, compact, and easy-to-read newspaper format.” The format, smaller than tabloid, is stitched and easy for readers to flip through. The paper is “stitched”, or stapled, and Figueiredo says stitching “makes people feel that they are reading a publication with lasting value, like a book.” Figueiredo is also proud of the ‘design-forward’, closely-edited content. “We have invested a great deal in the layout and graphics, and every page of the newspaper is discussed in detail and heavily edited. “We want our readers to feel that they are reading a good and glamorous magazine. Ideally we would have liked to have a more template-oriented approach, but the intense editing is something that we need in order to keep our quality profile,” he says. The newspaper is limited to four sections – Opinion, ‘Radar’ (which covers recent news in abbreviated form), a ‘Zoom’ section which gives a close-up of between eight and 13 topics, with at least a page (and sometimes as much as ten pages) dedicated toi a topic. Finally, ‘More’ covers personal information and sports. compact, stitched format ‘i’ distinguishes itself with its compact size and stitched sections. “Our readers love the paper’s small and ‘magazine-like’ format,” says Figueiredo. “All our competitors are using Berliner or tabloid formats, and none of them are stitched. So our format and layout in combination with the stitching gives us a good competitive edge.” Advertisers are also impressed by the ability to print ‘bleed’ advertisements, and even double-spread ads on pages two and three, “just like a magazine.” A couple of months after the newspaper’s launch, the team took the paper for an extensive ‘beach test’, with a marketing campaign on almost every major beach in Portugal. “People just loved it,” Figueiredo says. “They got a quality newspaper in a format that is easy to read when relaxing on the waterfront, a stitched paper that neatly stays together, and one that doesn’t blow away in the winds like our competitors.” And with imitation the highest form of flattery, its success has woken up other Portuguese newspapers, with one already announcing it will switch to a similar stitched format. Courtesy: Tolerans AB