Vertical Nameplate? GADS!
A number of daily newspapers unveiled redesigns recently, but what got my attention was the vertical nameplate (why in the heck do some people insist on calling it the “masthead”?)in the Hartford Courant. Here we have the oldest daily newspaper in the U.S. and not only do they Kate Moss the thing by making it thinner, but they make it thinner, too. By that I mean the newsprint size and the number of pages during the week.
Then, to make matters worse, they toss in a tres moderne nameplate in traditional blackletter in a vertical position. Then they take my favorite dot (the period that has been at the end of their name) and make it the dot before com, referring to the web site. I feel sorry for that good ol’ period. And don’t they know that to fight the new skinny look, they need to go with horizontal stripes, not vertical?
And what’s with the CT in front of every standing head? Don’t their readers know they are in Connecticut?
I have always liked the design of the Courant, and they still have great art and typography and ample white space. But I think they botched this one, even though I understand the financial pressures and their desire to connect more closely with the web site. Here is a sample:
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:58
We’ve seen some pretty radical redesigns from the Tribune papers during their Sam Zell-mandated “Summer of Redesigns.” The Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel, S. Florida Sun-Sentinel, and the Hartford Courant. The redesigns are all unique, inventive, and attractive, but, as a reader, I don’t think they really work. And I have to question the motives behind the redesigns.
To pick on the Courant, I didn’t see anything wrong with the previous version. The design was elegant and there was always a good mix of stories on the front. I think they tried to fix something that wasn’t broken. (The Tribune, on the other hand, looked tired … but I don’t think a massive overhaul was necessary; maybe just some tweaking of the design philosophies and story selection.)
Zell and the Tribune Co. want to make newspapers for people who don’t read newspapers. They want to pull people away from the Web and back into the print, and I don’t think that’s going to happen. We, as an industry, ought to be making newspapers for people who love newspapers. They, after all, are our core customers, and these new-fangled flashy products will just annoy them.