Update #3: Thursday, March 10, Hamburg, Germany, 19:00
TAKEAWAY: In the Netherlands, this week NRC Handelsblad switched from broadsheet to tabloid. We show you before and after, and more to come with the revamped weekend edition as it premieres Saturday in the compact format. To be updated when NRC produces its first weekend edition as a tab.
One less broadsheet in the Netherlands
The pages above are from today’s edition of NRC Handelsblad in its new tabloid format
The new NRC Handelsblad front page (daily), six column format, tabloid format
Last edition of the NRC Handelsblad in broadsheet format
With all the hoopla about iPad apps, we don’t hear much about broadsheet newspapers converting to tabloid format these days.
But, indeed, it is still happening—-as it should—-and this week another of the grand dame broadsheets, the Dutch financial daily, NRC Handelsblad
, abandoned its eight-column large format page for a fresh six-column tab.
Design director Jan Paul van der Wijk shares the before and after pages shown here, with the farewell edition of the broadsheet and the arrival of the new tabl.
I was invited to participate in this project, conducting a one-day workshop with the editors/designers in Rotterdam, where the newspaper is published. My involvement was more with the weekend edition, a very full, content driven package with various sections. Our task was how to pace the content of such a monumentally large product in a tabloid format where the natural divisions created by “separate sections” was not going to be a choice.
Jan Paul will send me materials on that weekend edition and we will update this blog to bring you the weekend product plus additional information.
For now, we do like what we see.
Notice that a decision was made here NOT to go with a miniposter cover on the daily front page. Instead, readers will find that the tabloid format front page is still familiar to what they saw in the broadsheet: stories to read that begin and end there, identical typography and just an easier to manage, less cluttered look all around.
Here is how design director Jan Paul van der Wijk describes the experience and he thanks his deputy Paula van Akkeren for the good work on the pages shown above:
For us, as designers, it was good fun working on a tabloid. We are already used to because of our other newspaper, nrc.next wich is published by the same editorial departement. I am until now very happy with the reactions of our readers. They are in a large majority very happy with the design that they found on their doorstep. We had a lot of reactions, and started a phone-in for our readers. Now we are working very hard on our Saturday-edition, and will keep you posted.
Detergents: from large to small containers…
While on the subject of less is best in terms of newspaper formats, I call your attention to an informative and provocative piece that comes from those guys at KubasPrimedia of Canada.
Author Len Kubas compares what the laundry detergent industry execs have experienced with the size of laundry detergent boxes (too big and cumbersome), and how they solved the problem (creating concentrated versions of their products). Using Procter & Gamble as the case study, Kubas shows that “Like most newspapers today, detergent manufacturers used to believe that bigger was better. “
Solution: to concentrate their product. “By concentrating the original product, detergent companies were able to provide consumers with equivalent wash loads in smaller, easier-to-handle containers for about the same price. Manufacturing, distribution, and sales costs were reduced, raising profitability and increasing efficiency across the entire supply chain.”
Kubas creates a word “benefitize” to describe the success story for the laundry detergent industry as it took a look at its product and found successful solutions:
“Benefitize” is not a proper word in the English language, but it is exactly what Proctor & Gamble’s marketers did. They changed the rules and moved from selling quantity by weight to selling benefits as wash loads, which is what their customers were really buying all along.
Then Kubas applies the benefitizing to newspapers:
The broadsheet newspaper is cumbersome, awkward to use, and inefficient in terms of costs and the revenue generated per unit of newsprint/labor consumed.
Apparently, many newspaper execs, including those at NRC Handelsblad, agree.
Go here to download pdf of the Kubas piece:
http://kubas.com/nrc/page5.html
Of interest today
Apple Is Opening A Pop-Up Store In Austin For SXSW
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Apple-Is-Opening-A-PopUp-siliconalley-2596506916.html?x=0&.v=2
Appeal of iPad 2 Is a Matter of Emotions
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/technology/personaltech/10pogue.html?_r=1&partner=yahoofinance
Review: With iPad 2, Apple one-ups itself
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Review-With-iPad-2-Apple-apf-3778973263.html?x=0&.v=1
– Magazines’ iPad Editions Struggle to Keep Your Attention, New Study Finds
http://adage.com/article/mediaworks/magazines-ipad-editions-struggle-attention/149307/
– Hearst’s Carey: Tablets Will Provide 25 Percent Of Magazines’ Circulation
http://paidcontent.org/article/419-media-summit-hearsts-carey-tablets-will-provide-25-percent-of-circ/
– Apple Offers Video Guided Tours of iPad 2
http://mashable.com/2011/03/09/ipad-2/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704132204576190562423226044.html?ru=yahoo&mod=yahoo_hs