Deadline time in Funchal.

With exclusive news about the local hero, Ronaldo!

This is how tomorrow’s front page will look with the new editorial and graphic formula for Diario de Noticias.

Rodrigo Boudrinho, art director of Diario de Noticias, and INNOVATION’s Guillermo Nagore working during the final minutes before tomorrow’s edition.

Luis Calisto, the editor, and Michael Blandy, the president of the paper, looking at the final pages.

Michael Blandy with Guillermo Nagore, Marta Botero and Carlos Soria.

Diario de Noticias has a new nameplate that this morning was turned into big pieces of chocolate as a sweet gift to follow the presentation of the new paper for more than 200 of Madeira’s VIPs.

Tomorrow, the leading newspaper of Funchal (Madeira), Diario de Noticias, launches its new editorial and graphic formula.

The Blandy family, which also produces some of Madeira’s best wines, and ControlInveste Media run this newspaper with style, passion and strong community-oriented news policies.

During the last nine months, a team of INNOVATION consultants (Carlos Soria, Guillermo Nagore, Eduardo Tessler, Ricardo Chaves, Decio Trujilo and Marta Botero) have been working on these changes under the leadership of Diario de Noticias president Michael Blandy and general manager Jose Bettencourt da Camara.

Dramatic and innovative changes for a regional newspaper.

Diario de Noticias is a striking case that shows how a quality, independent, regional newspaper can have one of the highest penetration rates of the Portuguese press.

Today I will show you today some of our prototypes, and tomorrow you will see the first real pages.

Guillermo Nagore, our New York-based design consultant, has been the force behind many of these new graphic concepts.

INNOVATION has been working for more than a year with the local team of directors and editors of this newspaper and next week, Diario de Noticias will present its new editorial and graphic design.

Guillermo Nagore (New York) is the INNOVATION consultant behind the graphic change.

Carlos Soria (Spain), Eduardo Tessler (Brazil) and Marta Botero (Colombia) developed the new editorial and newsroom managent models.

You will see here in a few days the new and improved Diario de Noticias, a family-owned newspaper celebrating 130 years.

Tomorrow, La Vanguardia, the leading quality family-owned newspaper of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain), will launch its new format.

Today, La Vanguardia has a supplement that tracks the graphic changes of the paper in its 126 years.

La Vanguardia will use two new and fast Wifag Evolution 371 full color printing presses.

The promotional campaign is simple and direct:

“La Vanguardia no cambia” or “La Vanguardia doesn’t change”

The message is clear:

The Spanish newspaper introduces editorial and graphic changes but the “soul” of the paper remains.

This is not a newspaper in crisis.

Or trying to find a new niche.

La Vanguardia will have the same tabloid format of El Pais, and the same format that it has had for its national and international editions for many years.

Javier de Godo, publisher and president of the paper was the force behind the dramatic and very successful changes made on October 2, 1989.

Then, Walter Bernard and Milton Glaser redesigned La Vanguardia in a big and original way and the paper started to print the new format with another Wifag.

The nameplate was changed.

A new editorial formula was launched and La Vanguardia got new young readers and more ads than ever.

Tomorrow’s changes are less dramatic, but, like in 1989, they have been seriously discussed for more than two years.

The new graphic and editorial formula has been developed as an “in-house” project lead by the publisher, Javier de Godo, and the editors Jose Antich and Alfredo Abian.

During this process, INNOVATION acted as a facilitator for the internal discussion.

The INNOVATION team included Carlos Soria (Spain), Juan Antonio Giner (USA), Juan Senor (UK), Claude Erbsen (USA), Thomaz Souto Correa (Brazil), Javier Errea (Spain), Javier Zarracina (USA), and Marta Torres (Spain).

We selected and presented the most relevant international media trends, audited the newspaper, reviewed its newsroom management and suggested many changes that at the end of this process were included in a final report to the directors and editors of La Vanguardia.

After our report was issued, the graphic changes were produced by the design department of La Vanguardia, lead by Carlos Perez de Rozas, Rosa Mundet and Jose Alberola, and the help of Pablo Martin and Jaime Serra.

They have done a superb job.

It has been a longterm project.

And an example of team work.

A content-driven redesign.

Today, the editor of the paper, Jose Antich, explains in its daily bulletin (“Looking to the Future”) how La Vanguardia will change tomorrow, but keeping its soul and, what’s more important, offering a better product than ever.

Jeff Jarvis has been in Germany consulting for Burda and he is very impressed by the quality of their young interns:

I’ve been told that the secret to MTV’s success is that it is reallly run by its interns.

Having interns and giving them the respect to both train them and listen to them is vital today for the obvious reason:

They understand the future better than the rest of us.

More than that, they are the future.

Reading Tina Brown’s latest book (The Diana Chronicles) during the last few days, she is described with this first line:

Tina Brown was twenty-five when she became editor-in-chief of The Tatler, reviving the nearly defunct 270 year sold magazine.

Well… our president, Carlos Soria, became the youngest media CEO in Spain when he was less than 26 year old, and since then he always tells us:

“Let’s always give great challenges and opportunities to young people, as soon as possible.”

INNOVATION has today a new generation of young consultants like Guillermo Nagore in New York, Carlo Campos, Jose Antonio Ferris, Ismael Nafria, Pablo Ramirez, Pablo Errea, Jorge Heili, and Daniel Lozano in Madrid, Gabriel Sama in San Antonio, Sophie Bougneres in France, Chiqui Esteban in Cadiz, Denny Brack in Washington D.C., Eduardo Tessler in Brazil, Christian Oliver in Atlanta, Javier Errea in Pamplona, David LaFontaine and Janine Warner in Los Angeles, Felipe Lamus in Chapel Hill, or Al Trivino, Michael Agar, Robin Gould, Guy Smith, Rob Beynon, and Juan Senor in London who are good examples of this policy of hiring the best of the best.

They are the future of INNOVATION.

Carlos Soria, INNOVATION’s president, writes another chapter about the transition from print to multimedia newsrooms.

This is one of the most crucial issues in today’s newsroom management of any newspaper company.

Read about what to do.

And what NOT to do.

To order copies of the report (available in English and Spanish) please go here.

www.innovationinnewspapers.com