I spent more time than I should have yesterday trying – and failing, wrong bit of Glasgow – to buy a Guardian. It was the last broadsheet, you see, and the last with that Garamond italic definite article which seems to have defined my typographic fancy for the last fifteen years.
Tomorrow’s edition will be in the continental ‘Berliner’ format – neither as large as a broadsheet nor as small as a tabloid, and a size the Graun’s been gunning for for years. Consequently, there’s a complete redesign. In the comfortable world of newspapers, this is A Big Thing. Risky, too.
Of course, this being the twenty-first century, they’re blogging the first edition today. It all reads a bit like a PR person’s dream of ‘you’re all doing marvelously,’ but credit to them for letting us in on the story.
Some comments on the new layout from type geeks; I’m in studio tomorrow, so will likely miss the general reaction. Boo!