Two recent front pages of France’s La Tribune, sent by art director Eric Beziat
TAKEAWAY: La Tribune, one of France’s financial dailies, has received recognition during the 11th annual Grand Prix des Medias organized by CB News as the best remake of the year. We were involved in the transformation of La Tribune from a tabloid to Berliner and send our congratulations.
For us at Garcia Media, and for me personally, this recognition of La Tribune as the “best reinvention” of 2008 constitutes a source of happy news. We had first done a remake of La Tribune in 2004, turning it into a colorful tabloid, with a better sense of navigation, more features and better use of infographics.
In 2008, however, new ownership, under the direction of Valerie Decamp, indicated a major shift. Again, we were involved with the dynamic Valerie, a new editor in chief, Erik Izraelewicz and art director Eric Beziat. Their formula appealed to me instantly: take La Tribune to a Berliner format, create new information architecture, change color palette (from burgundy to blue), and announce to the world that this new La Tribune is not just redesigning, but actually “relaunching”.
It was, indeed, a total reinvention, with all new faces in the newsroom, and with Valerie, who had come from the free daily Metro, calling the shots, supervising every detail, and very focused on the kind of newspaper she wanted. I remember Valerie telling me:
“Mario, we want a financial daily that is fun to read. Simply because it is a financial newspaper it does not have to say boring when you look at it. We want more features. We want opinion on Page One. We want articles about the environment. We want it to be beautiful.”
Well, Valerie, I loved the note yesterday where you invited me for a glass of bubblies when I am in Paris next.
We are on. Reason to celebrate. And for the readers of the “reinvented” La Tribune, daily celebration with a newspaper that is vibrant, easy to navigate and still commanding respect for its serious, creditable journalism.
Félicitations!
Best US websites
In case you missed it:
– USA: Rating the Top 25 Newspaper Websites 2009
http://247wallst.com/2009/06/15/rating-the-top-25-newspaper-websites-2009/
TheMarioBlog: one year old today
We posted our first blog entry exactly one year ago today. At the time, I remember saying to my daughter Elena:” I will give this a try and see where it takes me. Unless I can update daily, or almost daily, I don’t think I want to do it.”
Well, it ain’t so bad. I still manage to do my daily run, do some work, fly from here to there, and let my daily musings sort of drip onto the screen. Sometimes there are three or four topics clamoring for attention; other times, one must try a lilttle harder.
Your support and encouragement keep me going. Your comments make the blog better. I still would like to get more comments posted, but that is up to you. The majority of you prefer to send me emails, which is fine too (mario@garcia-media.com)
I have learned that the more personal the postings get, the more you like them. We will continue to give it the personal touch. We will try to do more of the one/three-minute interviews. We have not done too many videos, as promised, but perhaps the second year will make it easier for me to do that.
For now, thanks for accompanying me on this daily journey.
I will lift a glass of bubblies in Hamburg tonight to celebrate this first year. You do the same.
Muchas gracias!
TheMarioBlog posting #282