Update #4: Hong Kong, Monday, May 16, 14:58
TAKEAWAY: Today, Hong Kong’s best known English language daily appears with new look, new content, daily tab supplements and changes across the platforms. It culminates an 8-month project in which we examined every column, every page.
Billboards like this one on a local bus appear all over Hong Kong. Tomorrow in TheMarioBlog: the marketing of a newspaper’s relaunch
Here is today’s front page (first edition)—will update as more editions appear
South China Morning Post introduces changes across all three platforms today
Midnight and the press is running in Hong Kong, printing the first edition of the SCMP
Before and after front pages (in the prototype stages of the project)
Prototype of the Sunday front page for the South China Morning Post
Opening of Asia section: notice column of visual briefs, where many photos from around Asia tell a mini story via caption
The Back Page of Section 1: photographers in the staff of the SCMP use their smart phones to take pictures during assignments; the editor invites readers to send their own
Inside sports page
My first impressions of Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post are from 2000 when I arrived in the city of skyscrapers that sit on hills like bleachers in a football stadium to redesign The Wall Street Journal Asia.
Here we were converting the big WSJ broadsheet to compact size, but everyday, folded and wrapped in a small cotton bag, would be the South China Morning Post hanging from the door knob of my hotel room.
It was big, contemporary looking and a bit schizophrenic in terms of headline sizes, the stories it displayed on Page One—-one day heavily into the local political scene, the next a sort of cinema noir story about murder in one of those narrow alleys one finds behind the 78-floor towers. So each morning I would look at the SCMP, and, although I liked the energy and modern feel its typography and design evoked, I always wondered silently what I would have done with it if given an opportunity.
That opportunity came in mid 2010 when I had a call from then editor Reg
Chua, who, coincidentally was the editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal when we converted it to a compact format. It was a surprise t hear that Reg was now editor of the SCMP, but also to hear that my friend Steven Tan, with whom I had worked in a redesign of The Star, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, had also joined the SCMP as manager. We agreed to meet and it was like going home to sit with Reg and Steven and map out the rethinking of the South
China Morning Post that premieres today.
(Note: Reg accompanied us in the first stages of the project but resigned in April. He was replaced by acting editor Cliff Buddle, a veteran of the SCMP, whose enthusiasm, talent and professionalism allowed for a seamless transition and eventual culmination of the project).
The Hong Kong of 2011 is not the same I discovered I’m 2000.
Following the much celebrated transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in July 1997, Hong Kong has continued to grow upwards into the sky, but continues to provide some od the world’s best shopping, especially of the luxury kind. It is a young place, and one seas a sea of very young faces at every street corner while waiting for the traffic light to change; those double decker buses with the gigantic Gucci or Prada billboard ads on the side often resemble school buses, young faces peering from the windows.
This is the challenge for the South China Morning Post: to attract these young people and to convert them into habitual readers. Although these young people are bilingual , it is chic to speak Cantonese or Mandarin more so than English. The new SCMP would like to show them that it does not have to be, and that reading the English daily will allow them better opportunities both at home and abroad.
Although the newspaper’s marketing campaign, created by Anne Wong, SCMP Marketing Director, echoes this (Make Everyday Matter), the real proof is in how the editors develop consistent content strategies that prove the point daily.
From the very beginning, I was aware that this project would not be a mere cosmetic exercise, or another redesign (of which the SCMP had plenty in its 108-year history).
Instead, the task—-and the challenge—- would be to rethink the 108-year-old English language of Hong Kong for a new generation,a new Hong Kong and, of course, the new powerful and vibrant China.
And, as with newspapers everywhere we had to address the issue of how a printed newspaper thrives and survives in a multi platform world.
The first four pages constitute a mini newspaper: if the reader goes through these, he/she gets a good idea of what is going on
<
In a world with tons of information transmitting 24/7, and with impatient readers/users, the newspaper has to offer the type of content flow that adjusts to the lifestyle of those who consume it.
We created the mini newspaper concept to serve that purpose.
The mini newspaper is actually the first four pages of the new South China Morning Post: The front page with the news that you must know plus a window to the best of the inside,the second page a briefing agenda to Hong Kong and China today,with the photo of the day and quotes of relevance; page 3 a second front page packed with more news you should know before getting out to work; page four, focusing on one big theme of the day.
If all that a reader in a hurry reads is those four pages, he has a thorough idea of his world today.
Starting with page 5, the rest of the sectionalized content appears, starting with China news.
Today’s tabloid section: Money Post, a weekly guide to business and finance news, consumer information
Three of the five new supplements, all tabloids, appearing daily
There will be new lifestyle topics covered through daily supplements in tabloid format,from Health to Food to Money, these subjects which redefine the concept of news and extend it to embrace that which is important in the readers’ lives.
There was never a discussion of changing the logo of the South China Morning Post, but we wanted to clean it a bit, give it more style, and I wanted to. Trey the impact it would have with a blue background color, reversing the letters in white.
As we often do, we commissioned Jim Parkinson to take a look at the logo and offer us hips ideas, which he did in his usual masterful way (see below). The reversed blue logo appealed to many in the management team, so it was decided that we would use it for the Sunday edition.
The type scheme selected for the new SCMP combines
Farnham and Amplitude for headlines; Utopia for text; and Freight for headers.
img src=“https://garciamedia.com/assets/uploads/blog/color_coded_scmpjpeg_thumb.jpg” style=“border:0;” alt=“blog post image” width=“490” height=“274” />
Part of the process to ease navigation is the color coding of sections.
We created the color palette you see here, assigning specific colors to the various sections and subsections of the newspaper, inspired by the backdrop of colors that is this magnificently scenic city of Hong Kong and its surroundings.
On Sundays, the SCMP publishes Post Magazine, a semi glossy publicación with a variety of content such as features, fashion, food and wine, design, lifestyle and interviews.
Here we created a different logo emphasizing the letter P for Post, and allowing for a systematic index navigator on the cover.
Home page of the new iPad app edition for the South China Morning Post
Important to notice that the lead stories for print and iPad edition are totally different, underlining the importance of differentiating: the Hong Kong edition of the printed newspaper may emphasize a very local story, while the more global audience of the iPad edition craves features and more analytical stories. In this case, the printed newspaper carries a story on health: Hong Kong must act now to contain an alarming number of blood infections from deadly superbugs that are resistant to antibiotics, a leading researcher warns. Here is where a dedicated iPad edition editor makes the difference.
The iPad edition also opens with a health related story, but, in this case, about mental illness in Chine: the mainland still lacks a law governing the treatment of the mentally ill. Here is where the presence of a dedicated iPad editor makes the difference.
Here you see the evolution from the 1.0 to 2.0 versions of the South China Morning Post iPad app edition
Opening of China section: notice screen by screen navigator ready at the touch of screen
Opening of City section
Opening of Business section
Opening of Sports
One photo from the photo gallery
While the South China Morning Post launched its first iPad app, version 1.0 in November, we thought it would be timely to develop the 2.0 version to coincide with the launch of the printed edition.
Working closely with Ben Abbotts and Etienne Maccario, of the SCMP Digital Team, we decided to evolve from that 1.0 version which was more like a miniature replica of the newspaper, and to emphasize the larger photos, which will also be a trademark of the new printed edition.
In addition, we pick up the color code, typographic scheme and overall look and feel here.
We counted with the assistance of a wonderfully creative team to achieve the good results shown in the South China Morning Post that premieres today: our Garcia Media art director, Jan Kny; the SCMP’s art director,Troy Dunkley. For the Post Magazine’s redesign our Garcia Media art director was Nai Lee Lum, working closely with the Post’s art directors,Steve Ellul, and Catherine Tai. Other SCMP designers involved: Stephen Case, art director (Graphics & Illustration), Editorial; Simon Scarr, graphics director; Carl Jones, team head, Design and Layout; Ung Mah Pheng, Editorial Production Manager; Matthew Masiruw, Design trainee
For the digital platforms: We at Garcia Media worked with the SCMP’s digital editor, Ben Abbotts, Mario Garcia Jr. , of Garcia Interactive, continues to work with Ben on further development of the online edition; I work with Ben on the iPad edition.
Bild takes us to the Cannes Film Festival and you can play with the Palm d’Or.