WHEN I SAY NEWSPAPER…
January, 2007

translation into English: Danijela Tomazović
November, 2009

Last month, on January 25th 2007, Politika came out with a different layout on its 103rd birthday. Besides the new Cyrillic typeface, new design was done as well. The opinions on the new layout are various. There are many of them and some can be read in this article. Olivera Stojadinović and Jana Nikolić gave their opinions on the new newspaper layout, and you can join and give your opinion.

author: Olivera Stojadinović

Before us, we have new, light, fresh, laved, tidy, beautified, redesigned Politika.

The fact that this project was undertaken is significant per se. Over the past several years, redesign has been the matter of prestige in the world, undertaken by almost all newspapers that held themselves in high esteem. Together with layout improvements, ordering sets of typefaces exclusively made for this purpose is a common thing. Recently we were hearing about the family of 200 fonts made for the Guardian, and just over a year ago, Slovenian Delo was published with the new layout and its own typeface.

Starting with the heading: in my opinion, it could be larger. Maybe it is the matter of habit, but the heading strikes me as tiny, and the letters as somehow condensed. I did not systematically compare the old and the new heading; I am talking here exclusively about my personal impression.

Also, the size of the basic text: I find that it should be slightly smaller. It is now readable and light, but maybe too much. Previous narrower column had 32 characters in a row, and now after the column is made wider (there were 6 before now there are 5) there are again 32 characters. What is gained? Wider column could have ensured better layout with fewer words split, but this advantage disappeared when the letters were enlarged. The argument that the letters are now easier to read to the ones with bad eyesight is not in place: the ones who need eyeglasses will still need them at this letters size, while the ones with good eyesight will read easily anyway. The consequence is that the articles take more space, so some longer compositions discourage with its dimensions, and daily newspaper gains the quality of literal magazine (which is nice, but is it appropriate?).

Ascetic principle by which the rules are banished from the pages and the articles are split exclusively with white spaces functions only in case it is skillfully applied. This skillfulness varied from issue to issue so far, so some pages seemed disintegrated especially when the white spaces stretched horizontally over the whole format. (I was a bit relieved when I occasionally noticed some dotted rules.)

Typeface creation was entrusted to the famous Jovica Veljovic, which was a good move, and the biggest gain was that the author himself had the motif to publish one of his own Cyrillic typefaces, after the number of typefaces containing Latin letters only. The time he had to do this was extremely short and the result is a true accomplishment, but there is no doubt that it will be tweaked and complemented along the way, because typeface needs its own time to mature.

Roman serif typeface used for the text is of nice proportions and is very readable. Compared to previous typefaces Veljovic created it is a bit smoother than what one would expect of him. Opposite from that, italic is sharp, truly calligraphic, possibly a bit narrower than what is suitable for the newspaper typeset, but looks nice in the size in which the names of the articles authors are written. Certain letters will most likely undergo minor corrections in shape and details.

Sans serif is not related to serif shape and is next to the serif of the same name related to it just as the Helvetica to the Times, and this is certainly done on purpose. Therefore, this is not about the serif and sans serif variation of the same typeface, but about two different typefaces functioning together. It would be good to adjust some letters here as well.

The headers are in the same font as text, but will definitely be better when a special font is created for headers to have a bit different proportions and spacing. In case of magnified letters, one can see details that will definitely undergo some fine-tuning: stroke thickness, height and length of certain letters, shape of the endings, as well as spaces.

To conclude: redesign of Politika is successful and deserves compliments, while particular details will be further changed for sure. We were proud to have our Typometerers Olivera Batajic and Vedran Erakovic in this team.

author: Jana Nikolić

I was anxious about the first issue of redesigned Politika, as if I participated in redesigning work myself, because I am aware of the constant public criticism on absolutely any topic. The comments I am randomly hearing these days from the experts and ordinary people are mostly brutally negative without some real arguments to support those. I once again feel that there are rare people thinking about how much work and engagement is involved in what they are looking at and credibility of Creative and Art directors as well as their team's is neglected. For each true designer, the engagement on such a project is primarily personal challenge. Regardless of political strings always embedded in this geography, redesigning Politika is a serious project, which is now a part of our country's visual description.

Slightly redesigned newspaper logotype, carefully placed in the middle in precisely and elegantly measured size, clear on both ends, below a fine tiny line with basic information. Am I the only one noticing this!? Each person took the right of commenting how he or she does not like this new extension on letter “Л” at all. One could think that we are finally so bored that ordinary people started to deal with these matters. It was no guerilla design action. If you saw playful Culture column, then Feuilleton, all with phenomenal white spaces enriching the newspaper and making them closer to the book format. How wise is to educate the public in such an elegant manner? No one notices what is actually changed there, but notices that it seems as if the page is somehow brighter and somehow is easier to read… Well that's redesign!

The font that was so much talked about and that we anticipated eagerly – it is completely nice, I like those drastic oppositions between normal and italic versions. There are many things I still find confusing about it, I keep wondering whether the font was primarily made for text so there are some unusual strokes – on small letter “з”, for example, the bottom closing is very unusual. And capital “J” going below the basic line… But, away from the details, cover page is so boldly cleared, one large photograph only, the header, no colorfulness, completely in contrast to the rest of daily newspapers market. A complete redesign, starting with essence and not the form, would be even greater refreshment. That was not the starting point this time.

Theme: NEWSPAPER REDESIGN
The Guardian's Redesign