This is the weekend edition of TheMarioBlog and will be updated as needed. The next blog will be published Monday, Aug. 20—Update #3-Oslo, Friday, Aug. 17, 15:16
TAKEAWAY: TradeWinds, the international newspaper of the shipping industry, has introduced a new look starting today. The weekly tabloid with a global circulation is printed on blue paper. Changes that readers will see include new typographic fonts, new color palette and better story structures to create a more efficient page hierarchy.
The new TradeWinds: “punchier and refreshed”
Before and after of front page for TradeWinds
Here is the new front page of TradeWinds, Aug. 17th edition
Here is a typical front page from the TradeWinds before the redesign
These are some of the page one templates created for variety
Here is a double spread page of opinion in the new TradeWinds.
Here is how the new double spread pages look
This is a double page spread of the old TradeWinds
Sample page of typographic combination of Flama and Sueca for the new Trade Winds
Flama is the sans serif font used throughout the new design of TradeWinds
Sueca is the serif font used throughout the new design of TradeWinds
Sample page of color palette for the new TradeWinds
Finger reading made easy: The new index page: lists all names and companies included in this week’s edition
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The last page of the new TradeWinds
Details like those brackets offer visual continuity for special features
When those avid readers of TradeWinds, the international shipping newspaper, open their copy this week they will see that it is new, fresher, with new typography, better navigation and a bright color palette. In the words of editor-in-chief Julian Bray, “brighter, punchier, with more faces to reflect the strong personality flavor of the industry and TWs.”
It has been part of our work with the TradeWinds team of the past five months, to rethink this weekly, printed on blue paper stock, and highly specialized with its content that includes such topics as news of tankers, shipbuilders, boxships, and insurance.
While the audience of TradeWinds, like that of most highly specialized publications, remains devoted to the product, we knew from the start of the project that we had to make the readers’ journey through TradeWinds more pleasant and functional.
“I want to make sure that our readers realize this is an easier to read TradeWinds when we get through with our redesign,” says Julian.
What is new?
Things we did to make sure this happened:
Created a page one that offers more and clearer navigation to the inside, including a color coded index to content.
Created a series of story structures that allows for more defined page hierarchy.
Introduced new, more legible fonts: the two primary fonts are Sueca and Flama, in various weights, from regular to semibold and, in the case of Flama, extrabold.
Created a distinct color palette to contrast against the blue stock paper on which the newspaper is printed.
Created better signage to alert readers to the TradeWinds website.
The result is the August 17th edition of TradeWinds.
Each redesign project must be evaluated on its own merits, and on the degree of evolution to which the editors advanced from the original concept. While this is not a design that may introduce any cutting edge concepts, the mere job of cleaning up the pages, reviewing the typography and creating a cleaner environment for stories and visuals will be felt by the readers.
For us one of the greatest challenges has been how to make the newspaper more visual, especially when the types of photos available are inevitably going to be of shipping containers, or just people in the news.
This was a familiar situation to us, as we worked with the rethinking of TradeWinds’ sister publication, also published out of Oslo, Norway, the weekly Upstream, the newspaper of the Oil & Energy industries.
The role of specialized journals in the era of Twitter
Front page of this week’s Upstream, which is TradeWinds’ sister publication
Sister newspapers: Upstream (oil and energy), TradeWinds (shipping industry)
In 2012, what is the role and the future of these highly specialized journals that are for selective audiences worldwide? Publications such as TradeWinds and Upstream are produced in Oslo, Norway, although both publications have reporters in such areas of the world as Europe, Asia and the United States.
The newspapers are printed in London on Thursday morning each week, then flown to major capitals around the world where a majority of subscribers get their copies of TradeWinds and/or Upstream Friday.
The good news for both TradeWinds and Upstream is that the content they carry is so uniquely specialized that readers must come to them to get it, even though there is competition out there.
According to Erik Means, editor in chief of Upstream, one of the primary functions of the newspaper’s online service, UpstreamOnline.com, is that of an aggregator of energy industry news.
“There is so much energy news out there for readers to find, and we aim to stand as a one-stop-shop for industry professionals. So if there’s any news of note on the upstream oil and gas business, you should be able to find it on our site,” Erik says.
“Our weekly newspaper, on the other hand, is far from being an aggregator. The stories in the paper are first and foremost news exclusives and insightful analysis,” he adds emphatically. “In order for business-to-business publications like ours to survive, based primarily on subscription revenues, we need each week to offer our readers news and perspectives that they would not get from other channels.”
“We post 40 to 60 items on our website daily, but the printed weekly newspaper is more full of exclusives, more in depth analysis and definitely more added value,” Erik said.
At the moment, Upstream offers 75% of its online offerings for free access. The most exclusive items are password protected.
“However, we are raising that percentage and have started doing so in the past two months. We have some 150000 unique visitors per month to our website, but only about 6300 subscribers. We would like to close that gap for sure,” he said.
In the case of TradeWinds, with shipping news which is more difficult to get than that of oil and energy, the website only keeps 15 to 20 % of the content open for free access. TradeWinds also posts not more than 20 items per day.
Yet, both Upstream and TradeWinds continue to prosper and, actually, to thrive.
“It remains a mystery to some outside the subscription end of the business press why it continues to prosper. But it is simply down to those fundamental tenets of journalism: know your reader, and deliver what they need. If news and insight is delivered fast, accurately and is relevant it remains vital for professional business people, and they will pay for the access. Ironically, the explosion of social media (along with higher levels of education and use of English) has only stimulated people’s appetite further. Of course, quality business press will remain only a niche, but nevertheless a significant and profitable niche,“says TradeWinds editor in chief Julian Bray.
The team
The Garcia Media team for this project included art director, Robert Macli, who worked closely with the TradeWinds’ editor in chief Julian Bray and his team, including chief sub Roddy Craig,
TradeWinds team, from left: Roddy Craig, Trond Lillestolen, Monica Alcalde, Robert
Macli, Tom Lovejoy, Mario Garcia, John Landells, Brendan Bell and Geoff Garfield.
Previous blogs on the subject
Other blog discussions of Upstream,TradeWinds:
Upstream: a rethinking for the newspaper of the oil and energy industry
https://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/upstream_a_rethinking_for_the_newspaper_of_the_oil_and_energy_industry/
TradeWinds: rethinking the shipping industry’s weekly—the role of trade journals today
https://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/tradewinds_rethinking_the_shipping_industrys_weekly—the_role_of_trade_jour/
Of related interest:
Both of the fonts we used in TradeWinds come from the Mario Feliciano Foundry:
www.felicianotypefoundry.com
Typographic font: Flama
http://www.felicianotypefoundry.com/cms/fonts/flama
Typographic font: Sueca
http://www.felicianotypefoundry.com/cms/custom-fonts/sueca
Pop up of the day
It is quite hot in many parts of Europe, so Germany’s Bild includes a red hot weather segment in its iPad edition today. The headline reads: Summer invades Europe. Take a look!
Weekend reads
– Inside Forbes: A New Language of Journalism Speaks to the Rebirth of a Profession
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lewisdvorkin/2012/08/13/inside-forbes-a-new-language-of-journalism-speaks-to-the-rebirth-of-a-profession/
First paragraph:
As chief product officer, I spend a lot of time talking with people outside FORBES about our unique model for journalism. Here’s one question I get asked all the time: “What exactly are you guys up to?” I tell them we’re working hard to produce better journalism by reinventing the century-old, timeworn newsroom processes still used by so many in the industry to report and cover the news.
– USA: NYT’s choice of Mark Thompson as CEO signals changes ahead for company
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/business-news/the-biz-blog/185157/pick-for-nyt-ceo-signals-change-details-to-follow/
– Medium is well done, but is it the future of publishing?
http://gigaom.com/2012/08/15/medium-is-well-done-but-is-it-the-future-of-publishing/
First paragraph
Evan Williams and Biz Stone have launched a new web-publishing platform called Medium that they hope will be part of a reinvention of digital content. But apart from founders with a great pedigree, it’s not immediately clear what Medium offers that other services don’t.
– 13 ways of looking at Medium, the new blogging/sharing/discovery platform from @ev and Obvious
http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/08/13-ways-of-looking-at-medium-the-new-bloggingsharingdiscovery-platform-from-ev-and-obvious/
– Google Buys Newspaper Ad to Show Why Newspaper Ads Don’t Work
http://mashable.com/2012/08/14/google-print-ad-shows-why-newspaper-ads-dont-work/
– USA: At the ‘Times,’ a new mission statement
http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2012/08/6448519/times-new-mission-statement
– USA: New York Times Has Enough Cash To Go Private
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-16/new-york-times-has-enough-cash-to-go-private-real-m-a.html
– How USA Today used headline testing to boost Olympics traffic
http://www.journalism.co.uk/news/usa-today-uses-headline-testing-to-boost-olympics-traffic/s2/a550106/
– UK: Guardian relaunches Eyewitness iPad app with premium subscription
http://wallblog.co.uk/2012/08/16/guardian-relaunches-eyewitness-ipad-app-with-premium-subscription/
SPD: Speaker Series Begins with “News You Can Use”
(Joe Zeff Design Illustration, courtesy of SPD)
Tickets are now available for the Society of Publication Designers’ first Speaker Series event of the fall, “News You Can Use,” scheduled Sept. 10.
For more information:
http://www.spd.org/2012/08/speaker-series-begins-with-new.php
SND Scandinavia Space 2012 conference
Still time to get a spot to attend the SNDS conference in Copenhagen, Sept. 27-29;
For more information:
SNDS workshop ever. Read all about SPACE 2012 here:
The iPad Design Lab: Storytelling in the Age of the Tablet
Video walkthrough of the iPad prototype of iPad Design Lab
Mario Garcia’s upcoming speaking engagements:
WAN-IFRA World Editors Forum, Kiev, Ukraine, Sept. 2-5
http://www.wan-ifra.org/events/64th-world-newspaper-congress-19th-world-editors-forum
Cumbre Mundial de Diseño en Prensa 2012: Mexico City; September 24-26
http://www.cmdprensa.com/mx2012/
SND (Society of News Design) Cleveland; Oct. 11-13
http://cle.snd.org/