PREVIEW OF THE NEW EXPRESSO, A QUALITY BROADSHEET WEEKLY NEWSPAPER THAT BECOMES A FULL COLOR "BERLINER"

Here there is the first prototype of the new EXPRESSO, the weekly newspaper founded in 1973 by Francisco Pinto Balsemao, current president of the European Publishers Council and former prime minister of Portugal.

EXPRESSO has been always a newspaper icon of the new democratic Portugal.

The paper is changing in a big way: has a new editor, Henrique Monteiro, a former Harvard University Nieman Fellow, and a new Art Director, Marco Greco, ex designer of O Dia (Rio, Brazil) and Jornal de Noticias (Porto, Portugal).

Since October 2005, an INNOVATION team of consultants has been working with the editors and managers of EXPRESSO in what is considered the biggest change ever in the Portuguese press.

Carlos Soria, Juan Antonio Giner and Marta Botero, as INNOVATION directors, and Javier Errea, Eduardo Tessler, Claude Erbsen, Douglas Griffen, Patrick Garrett, Juan Ignacio Fernandez, Javier Zarracina, Ana Perez as part of the INNOVATION consultant team, were the force behind the new on and off line editorial and graphic models.

Mario Feliciano, a Portuguese typographer, did the new fonts named as "expresso", inspired in XVIII Century Iberic types, that is the only one used in the new paper with three different styles: text, headlines and sans.

The new logo named also as "expresso nameplate" is printed in reverse over a turquoise blue.

The old 8 column grid of the broadsheet is now a 30 column grid that becomes 6 columns for news, and 5 columns for features.

The new paper includes two full color main sections (news and economy), 32 pages each.

The "compact" editorial has many "quick-read" formats and new "graphic packages" that develop single issues in new narrative and creative ways.

Photo editing, illustrations and infographics are stronger than ever, and the new printing presses produce a newspaper with the quality reproduction of a magazine.

EXPRESSO will be printing tomorrow more than 160.000 copies, sold inside plastic bags (a 20 years unique tradition) that hold the two sections and two more publications, UNICA a lifestyle magazine, and ACTUAL a cultural one, plus several advertising sections and inserts.

The 160.000 "bags" will be equal to a building of 4.000 meters (almost 8 times the Sears Tower in Chicago).

And the 7 million printed pages of the hole edition will be enough to connect with a "paper bridge" Lisbon and Brasilia.

A powerful communication and promotion campaign was organized and lead by Pedro Norton, general manager of EXPRESSO, and Monica Balsemao, marketing director of the paper.

They are using: 5.500 billboards, 2.450 ATM ads, 1.500 radio spots, 200 TV spots, 100 printed ads, online banners, email messages, free DVDs during the first 8 weeks, and 7.000 posters in all the newstands of the country.

EXPRESSO has a newsroom of more than 140 journalists, and a weekly audience of more than 700.000 readers.

UPDATE: See here a photo gallery with pictures of the launching.