I have seen it happen over the past four decades: the canvas that we designers have to work with gets smaller. It’s a long time since newspapers were giant broadsheets, some with 8 or more columns. Many of those broadsheets reduced their width and length. Other newspapers decided to go from broadsheet to tabloid formats. In Europe, during the 1980s, a large number of newspapers went to a tabloid format.
Yes, I know that the term “tabloid” has a bad connotation, usually associated with down market titles with journalism that is not taken too seriously. However, in terms of formats the term applies to size, not quality!
I have converted more than 20 titles from broadsheet to tabloid, and I still remember the furor over the transformation of The Wall Street Journal Europe and Asia to tabloid in the early 2000s.
Then we got even smaller
By the early 1990s we were into conversions from print to web, and content reduced to the size of a computer screen for online editions.
Then along came the iPad and other tablets in 2011.
The concept of less is best has never been more important.
Tip: Start designing for the smallest canvas, and then take that content to the larger ones. Doing the opposite does not work as well.
Today, however, we have reached the smallest canvas of all: the screen of a smartphone.
Here is a cover we like
This week’s cover of France’s Paris Match, paying tribute to the iconic German fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, with a headline that reads:
Tribute to the Emperor of Fashion
Elegant use of black and white photo. Good use of type and headline hierarchy. Magnifique.
TheMarioBlog post # 2996