Oscar nominees are often told that “just been nominated” is already an honor. Be that as it may be, it is the actor with the trophy that gets the front page picture on every newspaper around the world.
So, when the editors of The Observer called to invite our firm, Garcia Media, to be one of three graphic design studios to “audition” for the chance to redesign the venerable Observer and assist with its transformation to the smaller Berliner format, of course, I was thrilled. Yes, I felt I was honored just by the invitation.
After all, we know that The Observer has had a grand tradition and a legacy of serious, credible—-and, very important, interesting—journalism. It is also the first Sunday newspaper ever published anywhere.
My team, composed of Rodrigo Fino, Christian Fortanet and Paula Ripoll, put our best effort forward: how can one change a legend? How can one redesign a newspaper that was already quite well designed, thank you. It was not easy, but that was part of the challenge.
We presented our ideas for the new Observer. Our competition was absolutely tough, and each of the other studios brought exciting visual ideas to the table. The Observer could have had a win win situation with any of the graphic studios invited to bid.
But we got the Oscar. And with that came an enormous responsibility to put our best foot forward, mobilize all our creative energies, and present them to the Observer’s design team—one of the best we have ever encountered anywhere.
More importantly, the involvement of the editors, led by project leader John Mulholland and art director Caz Roberts, gave each page a sense of the importance of storytelling, along with the power of visuals. At Garcia Media we often joke that The Observer’s project spoiled us. We want Mulholland and his team to follow us to every other project.
The Observer, like its sister newspaper, The Guardian, were making the switch to the more preferred “compact” format. But editors of both papers had made the decision to go with the slightly larger Berliner format, which allows for better use of individualized sections—for those who share their newspaper with other members of the family.
So on we went to try various typographic fonts, different story structures to facilitate communication to readers who, even on Sundays, have less time to read, but still want good writing, credible journalism, and service. How we could amplify the role of the Internet for our print readers? What color palette would best give continuity to the already colorful Observer, while bringing us into color coding for sections, and creating an attractive mix of hues on as many pages as possible.
As spring led to summer, we created pages, analyzed them, tossed many of them into graphic limbo, while pursuing others with ideas that we thought had better possibilities for readers in the culture of the “always on”. Writing and rewriting of text, making text bolder or lighter, photos larger or smaller, supplements more magazine-like, all of it proceeded on schedule.
By August 2005, we had a prototype of The Observer that we were all quite proud of. And the readers with whom it tested thought the same. Fine-tuning continues. It will not stop when that first copy of the new Observer rolls off the press on January 8, 2006. Newspapers today live in a world of constant change.
For the Observer, which saw the light one Sunday in December 1791, it has been an incredibly rich history. A tapestry of covering the news, analyzing it, illustrating it and serving it like hot croissants and steaming coffee to eagerly awaiting readers each Sunday.
A lot has changed since 1791—the year that Mozart died of rheumatoid fever, a day after the Observer was born. It was also the when the Bill of Rights was taking shape in the United States, while great philosophers and thinkers such as Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Voltaire, and Adam Smith were busy publishing works that still teach us. Musically, it was the Classical era, and a 21-year-old Beethoven was composing his first immortal works.
Just the appropriate backdrop for the other classic, The Observer, to come out into the streets of London. It continues to serve its readers well.
With a new format, the Observer editors have had a chance to “rethink” their newspaper, classic as ever, but in a more compact and easier to navigate package. A winner, for sure. And for me personally, and for our team, we feel like the Oscar winners, trophy in hand, and proud of a job that was, indeed, the ultimate collaboration.