April 23, 2007
Something's Wrong With The Globe Today, Farewell Boris, Dry Humping On The Dancefloor
So you wake up, make a cup of coffee, go outside to grab the newspaper in your PJs and suddenly notice that your regular copy of The Globe and Mail has been replaced with a more different copy of The Globe and Mail. One with ugly black divider bars scattered across the front page and at least a couple inches lost from the broadsheet. You notice an alarming increase of sans serif fonts. Is life ever the same after a redesign?
Breaking news: Boris Yeltsin is dead.
One TTC worker is dead and two more are injured after an accident in the subway tunnel near Eglinton station. All subway service between York Mills and Eglinton has been cut for now.
"Freaking" or "grinding" has been banned from school dances. I'm outraged. In the words of Gandhi, "I like my humping like I like my martinis...dry."
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What will Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin do?
The Globe's redesign is not good. Where to begin? It's worse than the previous look in so many ways: losing width but keeping the six columns, poor typography choices, a surfeit of horizontal and vertical rules, cramped body type, smaller photos, bad headshot crops . . . it has lost character and become more downmarket. I cannot find anyhting positive to say about this incarnation. Very disappointing.
David, that was my very first thought too.
The Globe and Mail's old design seemed kind of stodgy to me. The new one is too far the other way. And those bars are hideous, they're all my eyes focus on.
Oh, also, The Star's article on grinding is hilarious. I didn't know it was called "the nut and butt."
The Globe redesign; I could deal with the width change- makes it a little easier maybe on the subway, I could deal with the type-face - maybe it will make it easier to read for all the poor boomers who are losing their sight, I could deal with the black lines and chunky lay-out although I really don't like it. But WTF is with the new section "Globe Life"? I loved the fact that Facts and Arguments and Essays were on the back of the front section. This is an advertising grab. And "Globe Life?" More like "Globe Lite". Articles about how we like work more than home, celebrity buzz and what Margret Atwood thinks about her mother? that sucks.
I like the redesign over all. Very sleek and modern, while remaining authoritative. The typefaces are easy to scan and I especially like the universal ragged right.
The Facts & Arguments move will generate the most blowback. It's an obvious ad grab and really messes with the way people read the Globe. I predict that F&A is back to it's normal spot within a month.
man, the globe change was startling at 6am this morning!
i really like the look. the width reduction will be much appreciated on a packed streetcar, and i find the new fonts really pleasant.
haven't gotten to the "life" section yet though.. i will definitely miss the social studies collumn being on the back, it's been there ever since i started reading the globe as a kid..
Feedback from the pros at NewsDesigner.com:
While these pages look great in thumbnail, when you're holding the paper it looks incredibly disappointing.
The trim of the paper is good but the overuse of lines makes the entire thing look grey. Rather than looking modern, the paper looks rather retro--like something the Post would have put out had it been published in the early 80s. Or maybe the Globe's trying to mimic websites circa 1999.
The plethora of typefaces, lack of discernable headlines and over-reliance on lines--presumably to hide the basic design rules they're trying, unsucessfully, to break--make most of the paper look like a jumbled mess. The ragged type with the smaller column size makes reading stories difficult. Despite the smaller paper, the text looks more dense and cramped.
It's hard to read more than a few graphs in without being distracted or pulled away by a competing deck or psuedo-headline. Also, the breaks in the middle of the story that give statistics or sidebar information break the flow of the text.
And speaking of white space? What white space? With the exception of the pages shown here, there wasn't a cubic millimetre of whitespace to be found in the entire paper.
Did the quality of the paper or printing go down on this redesign? Because the photos look very muddy.
That being said, I think the redesign could be improved with tweaking. Use fewer decks. Nix the vertical lines and pump the headlines back up. Reduce the number of tyepfaces used and stop trying to cram so much on every single page.
At first glance, I thought the front page of this morning's Globe was one of the interior sections - I suspect this was due to where they placed the "Globe Life" banner.
Meanwhile, it looks like the National Post was trying to combat the relaunch, as they handed out free copies at Yonge and Eglinton for the first time in eons.
hmmm, less white space = less paper used. that's good!
yo TOers, quit bitchin' about everything .....
Grinding banned? What is this, "Footloose"? I think learning to freak the partner of your choice is an essential rite of passage that no high schooler should be denied. And that lady who says she wouldn't let them "neck in the corner"? Why the Hell not? Does she own their bodies, or do they?
Also, much as I love Charlie Keil and found his comments on the subject interesting, I have no idea why they would be asking his input in the first place. Am I missing a vital connection between Cinema Studies and high school dances?
The article doesn't mention the relevance to Toronto public schools at all.
I think for now we can assume that the freedom to dance is safe within our borders.
North Toronto Collegiate is a public school. It's on Roehampton, north of Eglington, the Toronto Board of Education can't afford the upkeep of the school, so they sold a chunk of the land for condos to Tridel. And Tridel is going to build a new school. With less public space.
The best part of the grinding article is when one student says that teachers sometimes poke students with sticks to get them apart. Golden.
easier for the subway... thats about it... otherwise completely awful. The Globe used to have class and sophisitcation... it is just looks like rubish now! booo!
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin responds!
Love the Clone High reference, but not my Globe Jr.