Irish Times....different

J.S. Pill

Having not bought the Irish Times for a few days, I picked it up on Tuesday and it was, well, different. Nothing drastic, just some changes in formatting and the updating of some columnist's pictures (they finally updated Vincent Browne's picture to reflect his haggardness). Still, I didn't like it - I don't like change and frankly I'm a little scared.

Anyone have any thoughts?



(I must say though, Rosin Ingle is looking well....)

berliner

Except for John Walters it has to be the most boring paper possible.Garret Fitzgerald on Saturday is the dullest,worst written colum in any newspaper.Even the Ballymagash examiner couldn't get it that badly wrong.

DMC

Madam Editor has given it another lick of paint, another typeface update.... second facelift in a couple of years, and the same reasons given?

/me struggles.... not.... to.................. make ........sexist ..... remark.......ARRGH!

alleepally

And they shoved the price up as well. I buy it on a Saturday only, just out of habit more than anything else.

Most weekdays I buy the UK Independent which is the best read of any newspaper out there imo.

Sad Professor

It looks crap. The paper needs a far bigger overhaul than just changing a few fonts and adding more crappy supplements.

shepthedog

The new photo supplement on a Monday is a nice addition..

flogen

In design terms it was really more a minor adjustment as opposed to a facelift... In reality an unaware reader would probably feel like there was something off, without being able to actually place what that was.

A few interesting changes to the content itself, though, perhaps showing the way the market is going (and has been going over the years).

jdivision

The decision to go with black and white byline pics on colour pages is stupid.

Humpty_Dumpty

berliner wrote: »

Except for John Walters it has to be the most boring paper possible.

You're a big fan of him then?

J.S. Pill

alleepally wrote: »

And they shoved the price up as well..

BOO!!

Citizen Jake

The new Irish Times front page redesign isn't very good. It looks like a loose imitation of the Indo. It's a shame because one of the hallmarks of the Old Lady of D'Olier Street was its distinctive typography.

Humpty_Dumpty

Citizen Jake wrote: »

The new Irish Times front page redesign isn't very good. It looks like a loose imitation of the Indo. It's a shame because one of the hallmarks of the Old Lady of D'Olier Street was its distinctive typography.

Inclined to agree, looks to me a little like change for change's sake from the New Lady of Tara Street.

berliner

Humpty_Dumpty wrote: »

You're a big fan of him then?

Walters has interesting things to say.Makes you see things differently.Should be in the papers more,

J.S. Pill

Oh well, I may get used to it - in time

Humpty_Dumpty

berliner wrote: »

Walters has interesting things to say.Makes you see things differently.Should be in the papers more,

Indeed. Except his name is Waters.

JustaJourno

I like the new design.. its not a radical one but the new fonts make it look a bit more 'modern'.

berliner

Humpty_Dumpty wrote: »

Indeed. Except his name is Waters.

Thanks for correcting me.Spelling was never my four tea.

monument

The revamp is an improvement. The paper feels more readable. But was it worth the €5m as reported by the Sunday Business Post?

This is what I can see has changed in the main section...

- Mast head surroundings changed, Ireland.com more strikingly on top of the masthead and in red
- Panels below mast head redesigned, now using more colour
- First word/s of articles up cased
- Headline font changed
- Article text changed??? but to one very very close to the old text???
- Byline font up cased and changed
- News digest brushed up
- Article ending notes changed in style (I'd say less modern looking the way a line has been added)
- Page identifiers changed
- Nibs 'In short' header more streamlined, nibs given a red square intro, nib headline and body text changed to a sans-serif font and bolded up
- More byline pics used
- Headline on article info panels given black background
- Redesigned pull quotes and more design white space around comment section
- Law report actually looks readable!
- editorials headline text centred (god only know why), and a line added to the right, splitting them from the letters section

raven136

have to say i dont read the times because of the design or otherwise,i read it because it has the best rugby and soccer writers around...thornley and humphries.Its golf and gaa is also excellent.
Politics is served well by michael o reagan and mark hennessey, while it tends to drone a bit in the columns but Vincent Browne,Fintan O toole and John Waters have the odd interesting piece.
Most papers are more expensive on a saturday no?i know the guardian is.
Papers live and die by their writers not the photo's or print.

Never got this whole obsession with tradation people have with the times,but hey thats just me,each to their own etc tec

gaf1983

monument wrote: »

- Nibs 'In short' header more streamlined, nibs given a red square intro, nib headline and body text changed to a sans-serif font and bolded up

I think Madam published a letter recently from an irate reader who said something along the lines of that a 'serious broadsheet' should not have stories written in sans serif font. I found myself agreeing with him, though I don't know why. I think the sans serif font, even for the 'In short' pieces, is more suited to Metro-style free papers.

Personally I don't like the way there are now two pages of opinion pages, offering about six articles rather than three. I think the quality of the opinion pieces has been some what diluted because of this.

cgi

It looks overcrowded in parts - the sports and news digest pieces are all over the place with NIBs everywhere. In time, it might settle down but it doesn't look to have found its feet just yet. Personally, I can live without seeing Waters never mind reading him. His articles are unbelievable sometimes (Katy French one comes to mind). The paper of record, in general, is the most "sober" (read boring?), but this jazzing up smacks of desperation. How are their sales - up/down?

monument

cgi wrote: »

It looks overcrowded in parts - the sports and news digest pieces are all over the place with NIBs everywhere.

Could you rephrase that? I can't really understand what you mean.

cgi wrote: »

Personally, I can live without seeing Waters never mind reading him. His articles are unbelievable sometimes (Katy French one comes to mind).

I'm not sure what that has to do with the revamp of the paper's design.

cgi wrote: »

The paper of record, in general, is the most "sober" (read boring?), but this jazzing up smacks of desperation. How are their sales - up/down?

Why?

Sales are quite stable. A 2.5 percent increase in Average Net Circulation was record in the latest ABC Island of Ireland report. While the latest JNRS results can not be compared year on year as there as been a change in how the stats are complied.

In fairness to the Irish Times and the external design company, the paper is now more inviting, and easer to read.

cgi

If you say so, you sound like you work there. It looks all over the place to me

monument

No, I don't work there.

But I would be interisted to hear why you think the redesign smacks of desperation, and why you feel it's all over the place.

jdivision

In fairness 2.5% sales increase is poor given Indo's gone so bad

J.S. Pill

Just noticed that the recently revamped BBC news website has very similar fonts, headline formats etc. to the Irish times. Maybe the design company were having a sale on that particular format.