During these holidays in Wales, I am reading again the British daily newspapers.
In detail.
With real interest.
And trying to find out the reasons of their circulation crisis.
The new compact versions of The Times, The Independent and The Guardian, look great but… they are difficult, really difficult to read.
Why?
This is an easy one.
You don’t need to be a design guru.
Or a consultant.
The only thing that you need to be is just a reader.
A patient reader.
A normal reader.
And you will immediately realize that these redesigns have been made with just only one obsession:
Having the same amount of content in less pages.
Well, the results are here: good design and bad readership.
More design awards… and less circulation.
As I said in our 2006 Innovations in Newspapers Global Report, all these newspapers zoomed their editions and now readers are paying the consequences..
Or better said:the newspapers are suffering the results of this big mistake.
The solution is simple:
1. EDIT, EDIT, EDIT! Your readers want relevant and compelling content and our newsrooms are trying to fit the same news and stories in less pages.
2. INCREASE THE TYPE SIZE! Your main audiences are older and older. So, you better pay attention to their needs or they will go away, as they are.
In more than 20 years working for newspapers around the world, one very important lesson that you learn is this:
You can change anything, except the text type size.
And don’t accept ever the silly reasons of many bad designers (oh, you know, it’s better but looks smaller).
Like our readers, I don’t care.
I want typefaces easy to read.
Bigger.
If not, bye, bye…