In a letter posted on its website this morning, Guardian editor-in-chief Katharine Viner wrote:
Welcome to a new look for the Guardian
Today, our newspaper is being printed in a new tabloid format for the first time, a decision we took seven months ago. We decided then that we also wanted to redesign the Guardian for our global readership online – to create a beautiful new design that works for readers across mobile, apps and desktop. It’s been an exhilarating period of creativity, imagination and focus, and we’re thrilled with the result. We hope you like it.
At the Guardian we have a special relationship with our readers. This relationship is not just about the news; it’s about a shared sense of purpose and a commitment to understand and illuminate our times. We feel a deep sense of duty and responsibility to our readers to honour the trust you place in us.
We have grounded our new editions in the qualities readers value most in Guardian journalism: clarity, in a world where facts should be sacred but are too often overlooked; imagination, in an age in which people yearn for new ideas and fresh alternatives to the way things are.
These hopeful themes of clarity and imagination have also been our guiding principles as the Guardian’s new design has taken shape. For several months, a team including our exceptional creative director Alex Breuer and senior editors and designers have been discussing and refining the Guardian’s new look, as well as gathering invaluable feedback from readers.
We have thought carefully about how our use of typography, colour and images can support and enhance Guardian journalism. We have introduced a font called Guardian Headline that is simple, confident and impactful. This was a collaboration with the design experts Commercial Type, who created the original Guardian Egyptian, and is easier to read. We’re using a range of energetic colours, and the much-loved Guardian visual wit and style remain at the heart of the look. The masthead has a renewed strength and confidence to represent the Guardian’s place and mission in these challenging times.
Guardian journalism itself will remain what it has always been: thoughtful, progressive, fiercely independent and challenging; and also witty, stylish and fun.
As you may know, my predecessor but one as editor of the Guardian, Peter Preston, died last week, which was very sad news for all of us at the Guardian. Peter was a brilliant editor, like his successor, Alan Rusbridger, and also a highly innovative one: he was editor when we first published on the web back in 1994. Peter always strived to make sure that, as he put it, the Guardian had pace, impact, and what he called “zing”. Our new design has all of those things.
Readers in the UK can buy a copy of the paper in its new tabloid format from Monday; if you’re an app user, you may need to update it to see the new design.
Let us know what you think.
Katharine Viner
Editor-in-chief
