Latest News
Sep. 2nd Ciao Jornal do Brasil: see you online
strong>TAKEAWAY: It is one of Brazil’s most traditional newspapers, but after 119 years of publishing, Jornal do Brasil has abandoned its printed edition to become an online newspaper only. The shape of things to come? Not for everyone, for sure, but one of the models we will see in place.
“Always an innovator”
Image contributed by our reader Alexandre Linhares Giesbrecht: last edition of JB in print, as seen in the press kiosk—-photo by Márcia Foletto/O Globo
Images from JB Digital: subscribers can flip through screens to read the newspaper online
Much has been written about Jornal do Brasil in the past 72 hours.
On Sept. 1, the legendary Brazilian daily abandoned ink on paper to become an “online newspaper” only. The newspaper that in its glory days sold about 150,000 copies a day was now seeling a mere 21,000. If you go online, you will find that the newspaper is now branded as JB Digital. It also promotes itself as “the first Brazilian newspaper on the Internet,“ a true claim which some bloggers tie to the innovative spirit of JB, forecasting that perhaps this, the first Brazilian daily to go totally digital may signal the way of things to come for other newspapers in the country. One blogger wrote: “Jornal do Brasil has always been a true innovator, could it be that this is also another form of setting the trend for the rest of us?“.
For me, personally, Jornal do Brasil brings the memories of my first consulting work in Brazil. It was 1979 and I was invited by then publisher (and a member of the family that owned JB) , Jose do Nacimiento Brito, to come “take a look at our newspaper and see how we could make it look better”. I entered the JB building and was impressed by the activity, the effervescence, and the quality of the illustrators who created marvelous caricatures and illustrations as fast as they could down those little cups of strong Brazilian coffee. It was not a full scale redesign, mostly an organization of typographic scheme, a remodeling of the front page and the creation of a more “poster like” front page for the Lifestyle and Entertainment section.
As I read what account to obituaries for JB I see the irony of the situation: columnists mourn the “death” of JB, although, in fact, the newspaper continues, but on a different platform. One columnist described JB’s history as “ a century of glory and two decades of agony”.
If you ask me, I think this is one of at least three modes of operation we will see in the next five years for newspapers worldwide.
1. The printed newspaper as part of multiplatform: this will be the most usual mode, in my view. The newspaper will adapt and will change role dramatically, but without ceasing to print. As in the case of the Detroit Free Press, we will see printing of the newspaper on some days of the week, not others.
2. The printed newspaper as part of a weekend package only. This is what The Christian Science Monitor has done: ink on paper only for weekends, and a daily online edition.
3. The online/tablet newspaper: in this model, chosen by Jornal do Brasil, we see no printed product at all, but publication continues digitally only.
The spirit and journalistic tradition of Jornal do Brasil are still here. I refuse to think that this is the way all newspapers will end. Not at all, but it will be one of the options that publishers facing hard times will have. It is not a solution that will work for all——and, indeed, not for many, I am sure.
One of our readers in Brazil, Alexandre Linhares Giesbrecht, wrote me the following reminiscence about JB:
In 1994, when I started following newspapers more closely, I bought JB at least once a week for a few months. It really looked dated for the times. Its printing was way behind the others, with very few color pages, and those color pages printed really poorly. That was my only regular contact with the paper. The only other impression I got from it was the curious way they used photo credits: they didn’t limit it to the author and/or agency; they added the city where the picture was taken. I don’t know if they still did it in 2010, but at least in 2002 they did.
Read more (in Portuguese):
http://oglobo.globo.com/economia/mat/2010/08/31/o-adeus-ao-jornal-do-brasil-apos-119-anos-um-dos-diarios-mais-importantes-do-pais-deixa-de-existir-na-sua-versao-em-papel-917524544.asp
The Mario Blog post #622
Posted by Dr. Mario R. Garcia on September 02, 2010
Sep. 1st Flip through the pages of L’Ordenateur Individuel: see new design
TAKEAWAY: Here is the entire edition of the new L’Ordenateur Individuel, which launched its new look, and merger with svm magazine this week in France.
To read the case study of L’Ordenateur in Spanish, see the Garcia Media Latinoamerica blog, and Rodrigo Fino’s commentary:
http://www.garcia-media.com.ar/blog/post/dos-en-uno-a-la-francesa/121
Colorful, informative, needed
img src=“http://garciamedia.com/images/blog/actualite_thumb.png” style=“border:0;“ alt=“blog post image” width=“449” height=“610” />
Make it colorful, distinctive, contemporary and blend the two mags nicely!
That is how our briefing went with the team of L’Ordinateur, with one important addition: let’s bring the best of that other French computer magazine, svm, to L’Ordinateur. The svm was on its way out, with bits and pieces of it coming to L’Ordinateur.
For us at Garcia Media no challenge is too big, and sometimes the bigger the better and more energizing. Working with my team of two superlative art directors, Frederic Plá, of our French team, and Paula Ripoll, senior art director at Garcia Media Latinoamerica in Buenos Aires,, we started sketching but only after we had gone through that difficult, but important, process of reviewing content, pacing it from page to page, and deciding when to allow for long narratives, when to interrupt with more “finger reading” style pages. L’Ordenadeur art director is Olivier Brault
A difficult part of the process was to design all those listings of products and prices, plus reviews and comparisons of projects. We decided that the typography would be key for this type of finger reading. And we used color advantageously to color code sections and create what I described as “mini magazines” within the magazine.
Computer magazines, we found out, are a different breed from the general interest or single subject magazines.
The die hard techies who read these publications want it all: the specifics of products, the pricing and comparisons, but they want to sink their teeth into good interviews, expert columns, not to mention narratives about what is coming and what the products will look like. A tall order, indeed, for the designer.
So, this is how we distributed the work from the start:
1. Content Review: what is coming from svm that must be preserved and presented lively on L’Ordinateur.
2. Content Pacing: what sections should come first, second and third, and how can we establish a good visual symphony that will allow the reader to sample long narratives, then take a visual break with pages of short items and tons of finger readings: violins and trombones.
3. Typographic considerations: Type had to be orchestrated perfectly well, to create variety, but to make the small type of listings and comparisons between products extremely legible. Add to that the fact that we wanted to remind readers of svm of their magazine, while introducing them to a new publication. The fonts used are: Vitesse, Heroun Sans (headlines and small boxes and/or briefs; Dot Matrix (variations, small box headlines, ornaments); Commodore 64 (accessories) and Escrow text (bodytext).
4. Color Coding: Each of the various sections has a specific color to identify it throughout, contributing to easy navigation but also to how we created the “mini magazine” concept, as if the sections are magazines themselves, complete with navigational details and promos to stories in that section.
Visit website:
http://www.01net.com/outils/PseudoV6?base=grandpublic&pseudo=oi&rub=10481
TheMarioBlog post #622
Posted by Dr. Mario R. Garcia on September 01, 2010
latest entries
- Relaunching L’Ordinateur Individuel in France
- My special Mother has rested
- The shape of newsrooms to come
- It is a tablet, tablet, tablet world
- And in the good news department…...
about the blog
A blog about storytelling, design, the projects we work on, the things we learn along the way. View all blog entries »
categories
- Color Use (2)
- Communications (5)
- Corporate (2)
- Design (5)
- Magazines (10)
- Media (1)
- Newspapers (43)
- Online (11)
- Print (4)
- Storytelling (1)
- Uncategorized (608)