Uma palavra para definir a nova Newsweek

O que pensa Mario García sobre a mudança anunciada pela Newsweek: "desespero". Escreveu em seu blog: "normalmente, os psicólogos aconselham pacientes a não fazer mudanças drásticas em tempos de crise, pois podem lamentar mais tarde. O mesmo se aplica a revistas e jornais. Com a reforma, a Newsweek perdeu o que seus redatores fazem melhor: a narrativa. Isso em uma época em que é urgente realçar o modo como as histórias são contadas para uma audiência impaciente, bem informada e totalmente indisciplinada no modo de lidar com o texto."

What I think of the new Newsweek look

Typography:

The font utilized is not strong enough to carry the type of content that goes here; it is skeletal, so minimalist that it does not engage you by just looking at the headlines; the content here is stronger than the way it is presented.

Storytelling strategies: Blocks of text are thown on the page with little , if any, attempts to enhance storytelling—-except for interesting and detailed time lines and other elements that usually appear at the very bottom of the page, totally disengaged from the story they accompany. This seems to be a pattern. I doubt that the designers doing this (studio called Number 17) thought of this project as a journalistic design. I have seen fashion magazines—-and catalogues—-in the Scandinavian countries that resemble this type of approach. In their case, however, the publication is there to showcase photos of models, the text is not even secondary. At Newsweek, text is what we buy the magazine for, or at least that is why I continue to subscribe.

In my view, storytelling took a dramatic step backwards here. Were any editors involved in the process? The old dog in me says that this became a Design with capital letters sort of project. More than a reinvention, this was a revisualization—with not such good results.

Preserving the mag’s DNA: In terms of conveying the spirit of Newsweek (or preserving it?), nothing like that happened here. While the new Newswekk perhaps aims to be hip, it is sort of “retro confused”-—part tabloid, part The Economist wannabe, part advertorial supplement (big time).

Content restructuring: The magazine’s division into four content areas is good, and I do like that, especially the Scope section, which moves fast and seems to have been the most journalistically designed of all; however, the design for each opener is a disaster in terms of navigation. Indeed, there is a sort of belt, in red, that crosses the page with headlines of what ‘s inside that section. Great idea. Execution? Not clever at all. Type too small, no sense of hierarchy. Like with type elsewhere, there is a great disconnect between utilization of type and type functionality. When this happens, the entire concept collapses. It does here.

True, this is only their second issue. Design evolves. Editors take a good look at what they are doing, and fix things (my hope). They also listen to what readers tell them.

Why I keep my subscription
I have been an avid Newsweek reader for decades. I will continue to subscribe, primarily because I like the stories, and, especially whatever Fareed Zakariawrites about. I will follow Zakaria even if he writes his stuff in five point Futura on the back of a subway system map (that is a stretch).

Which goes to show what we have said all along: it is all about the content.

However, nobody should have to suffer a bit to access it.

I mentioned earlier that my reason for writing this blog is to sort of question the intentions behind the Newsweek project? I welcome comments from anyone associated with the project, of course.

LM