  Diary of a Makeover: REDESIGN = REDEFINE AT THE BOSTON HERALD | |||
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Author's note: The Boston Herald redesign was launched Aug. 24, 1998. Go here for a gallery of page designs and information about the reaction to the new look. "To Redesign: Why? How? Who?" Articles index. Home page: www.ronreason.com |
By Ron
Reason Originally commissioned for and published in Presstime magazine. Not to be republished without permission or recirculated without attribution. In January 1996, newsroom leaders of the Boston
Herald engaged in a series of meetings to discuss the paper's
future. On the surface, their goal was to brainstorm ideas about new
content and ways to better serve existing, and possibly new,
audiences. Underlying the conversation was a strong desire to update
the 285,930-circulation paper's look, and to enable the staff to make
greater use of design and graphics in conveying the news. Traditional
"word people" were among those most articulate about the need for
physical change.
The morning Herald, Boston's number-two paper, is a
lean-and-mean tabloid tackling the larger Globe. Its news report
can fairly be called an edgier take on the city's affairs. Readers like
the Herald's breaking crime news, gossip, award-winning photo
coverage, sports, and in-your-face columnists. Inarguably, this paper
projects personality.
But as recently as 1994, when Publisher Patrick J. Purcell bought
the Herald from media baron Rupert Murdoch, many questioned the
survival of that personality. This hand over, combined with concerns
about declining circulation, made the time ripe for talk about the
future.
In July 1996, Editor Andrew F. Costello Jr. contacted me about
shepherding a new look for the Herald. As director of visual
journalism at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, I am periodically
asked to consult on redesign or training issues. The Herald, as
the underdog metro, promised some fascinating academic as well as
professional opportunities.
Costello suggested a preliminary visit to ensure that the
Herald and I would be a good "fit." In preparation, I read the
paper closely for several weeks and poured over dozens of memos
chronicling the staff's conversation on change. It was apparent that the
time was right for a redesign.
One year later, much of the process is behind us. The redesign
has served up a number of lessons that may help guide other managers
confronting the need for a makeover, either in the physical look of
their paper or the attitudes that shape it.
During August 1996, in the first of what would become monthly visits
to the Herald newsroom, I began lengthy and ongoing conversations
with reporters, artists, editors and photographers about how they
thought the paper should change. I have tried to serve as a mediator for
some difficult talk, sometimes challenging age-old traditions. Employees
have been asked:
In September 1996, I presented to the newsroom a dozen variations of
what I thought the front page might become. I knew the staff felt
strongly about its front page, and I sensed that this would be a moment
of decision that could influence how the project developed.
To my relief, these prototypes met with broad acceptance, and a
lively review ensued. Some revisions would be made along the way, but
the tone seemed right. Most everyone agreed these pages would be a good
foundation for others to follow, and Costello and Purcell committed to
the redesign.
One of my first reactions upon analyzing the paper was that many
"design cobwebs" had cropped up over time. As is common with similar
newspapers that don't follow a design stylebook, dozens of variations of
logos and page headers had taken up residence.
Hundreds of fonts were available to Herald copy editors
and artists. Along with typography, gray screens, boxes, shadows and
rules were used with abandon; the design philosophy was nearly "anything
goes." Even if I introduced new typography and page architecture, I
worried, design chaos might reappear at anytime.
It had become obvious that this project should have two components:
the physical redesign, including typography and architecture to be
outlined in a new design stylebook, and training of the staff to think
differently about planning, communicating, and visual storytelling.
By October 1996, I set out to convince Costello, redesign
coordinator Linda G. Kincaid, and Design Director Ed Barrett to
introduce a clean-up phase. Before adopting any new elements, we had to
teach the staff better design habits. Designers soon learned to use
fewer fonts more effectively, and to rely less on gray screens and other
elements that do not print well on the Herald's aging Hoe
letterpress presses.
Thus began an interim period to carry the staff through to the
launch of the new look later this year. A training program helped
broaden awareness of how type works, and Times and Univers were
temporarily adopted as font families for use throughout the paper. This
made designers and copy editors less dependent on multiple fonts and
gimmicks and more concerned with improving art and page design.
This new approach already has helped create a more clear and
cohesive editorial identity and distinguished the news hole from the
paper's busy ad pages. And in addition to thinking in new ways about
type and design, the staff is spending more time on planning and
brainstorming for both daily and long-term projects.
One key component of this emphasis on training was Costello's
clarification of some newsroom roles. Barrett and Kincaid were empowered
to police design and champion graphics in a way that had not been done
before. Now many pages are reviewed with the designer before
publication, or after the fact, in biweekly group critiques.
One specific design element that managers were eager to change
was body copy. The paper's current font, Century Expanded, was too
fragile for the nearly 40-year-old presses, and often broke apart on the
printed page. Kincaid decided to test the new Poynter text typefaces,
which proved more sturdy and readable, and arranged for licensing with
the font's distributor, the Font Bureau Inc. of Boston.
During fall and winter 1996, more prototypes were created and
revised on the Macintosh computer, and the new look was fleshed out. And
on each of my visits, many in the newsroom contributed good ideas about
how the paper should look. But they also had strong opinions about how
the process of putting out the paper should improve. Conventions started
to be challenged, such as a decades-old rule that stories must accompany
all display photos. "Why not?" and "Where did that rule come from?"
entered the newsroom vocabulary.
In many ways, the baggage the Herald had accumulated was
as much philosophical as typographic. Over the years, the ownership and
even name of the paper had changed significantly. At one point it was
even called the Boston Record American-Herald Traveler. The
paper has been alternately a broadsheet and a tabloid, sometimes
extremely sensational, sometimes quiet and conservative.
Still felt is the reign of Murdoch, who bought the Boston
Herald-American in 1982, shortening its name and adding a colorful
chapter to its history. Editors brought in from Murdoch's New York
Post and other papers came and went, leaving behind styles and
influences that still resonate in the newsroom and the community.Said one Bostonian, upon learning that I was helping to
update the Herald's appearance: "I hope you can do something
about its content, too!" She clearly hadn't read the paper much since
its sensational days, and was unaware of how good many of its sections
were today. Clearly, one goal of the new design would have to be to make
the paper's quality more evident to readers like this. "Have you read
the Herald lately?" became a possible marketing slogan that rings
through my head.
While Herald managers have explored ways to update the
paper's mission, staff structure, and decision-making processes, their
definition of journalism has broadened as well. Already, graphic
storytelling has received more emphasis, as illustrated through the
paper's comprehensive coverage this summer of the bicentennial sailing
of the USS Constitution.
Some might view this new emphasis on visuals as too slow in coming.
But as Sunday Managing Editor Kevin R. Convey told me, change has always
been slow to come to this paper. "People don't realize the Herald
was one of the last big papers to even move to a front-end system" for
editorial production, in the mid-'80s, Convey said.
As of September 1997, the Herald has evolved into a cleaner
paper, with more respect for photos, fewer aberrant type combinations,
and greater clarity of words and visuals. Kincaid, who recently was
appointed deputy managing editor for design and production, expects that
the redesign will basically be a switch to new fonts. The wide variety
of column logos and section nameplates, still in use, will be replaced
by a cleaner, tighter set of standard styles.
The redesign, essentially finished, made its debut after
the Herald presses were retrofitted to add five KBA flexo press
units, to allow the printing of more color pages. A new design
stylebook of nearly 100 pages guided the staff in the nuts and bolts
of the new design and remind them of the philosophy behind its adoption.
It included extensive computer codes for the new styles as well as
sample pages.
As should be the case with any redesign, this project has proved
to be about much more than typefaces and white space. A new look and
some new attitudes will have the potential to help redefine and
re-establish what the Herald represents in the late '90s, and
perhaps for years to come. © 1998, Ron Reason. Not to be republished without permission or recirculated without attribution. Back to top of page |
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Updated: January 2006. Email the author
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