The New York Times has rightly been commended for yesterday’s stunning type-only front page. Blogging great Jason Kottke has a nice piece about it:
In the past five months, more Americans have died from Covid-19 than in the decade-plus of the Vietnam War and the death toll is a third of the number of Americans who died in World War II. When this is over (whatever that means), the one thing we cannot do is forget all of these people. And we owe to them to make this mean something.
Two weeks into the Guardian’s redesign as a tabloid, it’s interesting to see how the masthead has evolved. Here are the mastheads from the first five days:
Safe to say, there is a lot going on in all of them.
But it seems that now it has been decided to change things a bit – mainly by introducing a faint blue tint into the background. And on both Monday and Tuesday, the number of other items in the box was reduced considerably. Here is yesterday’s masthead (6 February):
The words The Guardian have been lifted slightly to leave space between them and the four fine rules which separate the masthead from the splash headline below. The typography is restricted to two shades of blue and black.
However, today (7 February) – bang! All the clutter is back, and the colour palette for the typography has been wildly expanded.
It’s a design which is obviously evolving.
I’m still not sold on the type used in the masthead itself. It was described on the first day as being specially drawn for the purpose. To me, it looks too much like that ghastly 70s kitsch typeface, ITC Tiffany Heavy:
I know the individual letterforms aren’t much the same, but it is the overall effect which immediately reminded me. Each to their own, I suppose.
Plenty of Taste 