I’m quite excited by The Guardian’s new look that should appear on Monday in the “Berliner” format – essentially tabloid, but around a centimetre wider and 9 centimetres taller. There’s a piece from Press Gazette going through the paper.
What this re-launch isn’t is just a shrinking of the current design into a tabloid format. That was the route that both The Independent and The Times took, both offering broadsheet versions of their papers for at least a while before going 100% tabloid. What they did was essentially make the same offering available in a tabloid format. There were some early issues with The Times reducing word counts in the tabloid version, and even dropping “duller” stories for the tabloid, but what they were trying to do was not alienate older readers, while making the paper more attractive for younger ones.
But this does mean we’re losing a few features (and probably gaining new ones). I know, for example, that the Radio Diary is going, which is a shame given that it’s only a couple of hundred words. And we’re losing Life too. In its place is an IT focused supplement – as Online was before Life came along, relegating Online to the back. It’s a shame, because buying the paper on a Thursday was essential. We are getting a daily science page however. And Bad Science is here to stay which is excellent.
So that leaves one question… How do they change the website into Berliner format?
[Update: There’s loads here including a preview of it from tomorrow’s paper]