At Garcia Media we were honored when selected to be the consultants to help the team of Asharq Al-Awsat with a total rethink that will make its award-winning, influential content more easily accessible across platforms. Understanding that many of its readers now consume contents of the newspaper on mobile devices, our work was not only to redesign and refresh the look of the print edition, aptly referred to as “the green giant” for its iconic use of green paper to print, but also to train the editorial team in the strategies of mobile storytelling.
Our work involved redesign of all platforms, training of the team, and a new, more modular, photo-driven print edition, as you will see here.
A little history
Asharq Al-Awsat was established in 1978. In a column about the relaunch of the newspaper, Faisal J. Abbas, the editor in chief of Arab News., the English language daily that is also part of Saudi Media Research Group, writes that “Asharq Al-Awsat has carved itself a unique position among Arabic-language newspapers. Indeed, it has always been the International Herald Tribune of the Arab world — a must-read for movers and shakers at home and a loyal companion of Arab business travelers, almost anywhere they went in the world.” (see screenshot of page with this article in full at end of this blog post)
In the 1980s, Asharq Al-Awsat became the first newspaper in the world to print via satellite in four continents, a breakthrough in the world of publishing.
While the newspaper belongs to Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Media Research Group (SMRG), it is published from London, where our team did most of the work.
In a column to introduce the relaunch, Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, wrote:
Asharq Al-Awsat was born to be the international newspaper of the Arabs. It informs its Arab readers about the storms, inventions, and waves of change underway across the world, providing its distant audience with content that helps them understand the region to which we belong. Journalists and readers looked out at and watched the world and the region (despite its conflicts and schisms) changing through the window of Asharq Al-Awsat. Armed with its professionalism, objectivity, and its decision to be a voice of moderation and acceptance of the other, Asharq Al-Awsat has kept its readers in the know. From that same window, readers also followed the river of discoveries, inventions, and ideas seen across the globe every day.
In a world of rapidly accelerating technological change, vibrant institutions cannot sit on the sidelines. They have no choice but to engage with the world, strive for better, contemporize their mentalities, and update their methods. A young and thriving 45-year-old newspaper, Asharq Al-Awsat is doing just that. A golden contract par excellence. It has created a space in which vigorous youths and experienced veterans can come together and combine the spirit of the times with our rich heritage.
Goals and scope of our project
From the start, we knew that we needed to make the good journalistic content of Asharq Al-Awsat more accessible. To do so, our strategy consisted of:
- Train the editorial team to think in terms of mobile first.
- Introduce more videos and graphics into everyday stories.
- For the print product, a more modular approach.
- Greater hierarchy across platforms to indicate the importance and rank of stories.
- Better use of photos. Especially in print, larger photographs and illustrations.
- Units of white space to avoid crowded pages.
- Easier to access news on mobile app.
This is how front page looked BEFORE redesign
The front page Before and after the relaunch
The new look
These are from the first and second days since the relaunch!
Our original front page design concepts
These are some of the variables that we presented to the team for consideration. As in most redesign projects, some ideas are instantly accepted for adoption, others are not.
Inside pages
The emphasis is on very modular design to create a sense of hierarchy and rectangular organization of stories and images.
Emphasis on bigger photographs
Lifestyle & People Pages
Labels and Folios
The six column grid
We changed from an 8-column grid to 6 columns, which allows for a cleaner spatial environment, better use of modules and an overall more elegant look for the placement of stories and images.
Typography
Color Palette
Story structure details for secondary readings
It is important to offer highlights using quotes, numbers, statistics and bio information that enhance understanding of story. Here are the templates we created for those elements.
Views from our various workshops with the team
It is during design workshops that we can present all ideas for consideration, no matter how far fetched. Good discussions and analysis of the work presented eventually lead to the final version. Such was the case in the relaunch of Asharq Al-Awsat.
The team
We worked closely with the in-house team headed by project leader, Fadi Mroue, creative director for the Saudi Media Research Group.
Mohamed Hani is Executive Managing Editor of Asharq Al-Awsat.
Osama Aljawish served as senior art director for Garcia Media on this project.
The in-house design team: Adel Nouman, art director, and the designers who worked on the implementation are Hassan Mallah and Nadim Farhat from Asharq Al-Awsat and Ali Elsayed and Marko Slakovich, from SMRG Labs.
Of related interest
Our previous work with Arabic-language media
Here is blog post about our work with Lebanon’s An Nahar in 2011;
Our redesign of the travel/lifestyle magazine List, which publishes in Arabic and English:
Created the concept for the news magazine Al Majalla (2022)
Bring our mobile storytelling workshop to train, inspire teams in your newsroom, corporate communications departments.
It is a mobile world, and 82% of all content is consumed on a mobile device worldwide, not just news, but all sorts of documents, especially pdfs. If your company is in the business of creating content, then you need to start thinking from small to large. Create that content for the smallest platform, where a majority of the users are consuming it.
Our Garcia Media Mobile Storytelling workshops are proven to introduce your editorial team to the way we write, edit and design for mobile platforms. It is a one-day program that involves a presentation (where I summarize my Columbia University class content), and follow it with a hands on workshop.
Did you read The Story yet?
I urge you to consult my latest book, The Story, a trilogy full of tips and explanations about mobile storytelling, which represents the latest genre for journalists to explore. See information below:
The full trilogy of The Story now available–3 books to guide you through a mobile first strategy. Whether you’re a reporter, editor, designer, publisher, corporate communicator, The Story is for you! https://amazon
Volume 1: Transformation
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-story-volume-i/id1480169411
Volume Two: Storytelling
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-story-volume-ii/id1484581220
Volume Three: Design
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-story-volume-iii/id1497049918
Order the print edition of The Story, from Amazon, here:
The Story, en español:
TheMarioBlog post # 3369