Is the Guardian worse than it used to be?

More Prince Harry today:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/27/the-guardian-view-on-prince-harry-the-monarchys-best-insurance-policy

Just giving him the same tobacco smoke enema as the BBC have, yeah more posh but dim Tory celebs needed in this era.

this headline

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/07/uk-retailers-to-restrict-sale-of-acid-products-to-under-18s-b-and-q-wickes-tesco-attacks

you have to send your bairns into B+Q for sulphuric acid these days, that first acid attack is always the most special one!

This is quite impressive:

The @guardian have written an obituary of their former editor which contains false information lifted, seemingly, straight from Wikipedia. This is extraordinary. (Peter Preston's 51st State is a weirdly prescient political novel. The film is about a drug deal in Liverpool.) pic.twitter.com/LP9spFDAIJ

— Heather Ryan (@DrHFRyan) January 7, 2018

fuck me, that isn't going to make it to the corrections and clarifications section.

is the Guardian masthead worse than it used to be?

http://uk.phaidon.com/agenda/design/articles/2012/september/27/design-of-the-week-david-hillmans-guardian/

I miss the 90s masthead

sorry, the link was supposed to be this: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/12/guardian-unveils-new-masthead-tabloid-launch-newspaper-online-apps?CMP=share_btn_tw

look forward to a bunch of thinkpieces from the usual idiots about how the absence of capitalization indicates a postmodern wilderness where truth has been abandoned and the liberal consensus has failed and you're not even allowed to call them [INSERT RACIST EPITHET HERE] any more

caps are back mate and serifs too

https://i.imgur.com/GqeNCAl.jpg

It looks like the font on a mafia film poster.

Was thinking more 80s Woody Allen

It feels like it should be lightly animated.

i like it, the guardian still sucks tho

can't help reading it as The. Guardian

oh I obviously mis-skimmed the article, hurray for truth, objectivity and sensible centrism.

there's a fish and chip shop in Hull called The Codfather that uses a similar logo

I think this cover has been v typographically influential over the last couple of years

http://d28hgpri8am2if.cloudfront.net/book_images/onix/cvr9781476789033/a-girl-is-a-half-formed-thing-9781476789033_hr.jpg

(See also the South Bank rebrand etc)

It looks like the font on a mafia film poster.

― Madchen, Friday, 12 January 2018 11:49 (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Was thinking more 80s Woody Allen

― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Friday, 12 January 2018 11:55 (sixteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First two thoughts!

pls to make 'guardfather' photoshop

that sort of late-70s airport novel font is everywhere now

isn't it a bit close to the evening standard actually??

https://d24j9r7lck9cin.cloudfront.net/l/f/1/1569.1433428864.png

also good

main difference visible in the As

there are a lot of As writing for both papers

\o/

i like the guardian font better but the ES handles the fall on the page better (e.g. the dot on the i doesn't resemble a full-stop after London, and having London at a smaller type size is good not bad)

(i think the guardian shd also have downsized their the, it's the least important element in their name)

pls to make 'guardfather' photoshop

― pee-wee and the power men (bizarro gazzara), Friday, January 12, 2018 12:57 PM (twenty minutes ago) Bookmark

Or Guardfellas.

It's making my eye do funny things between the T and the H, possibly because of the sloping tops of the U underneath.

I don't like this new Guardian typeface.

I intend to buy the paper today, for the last time before it changes.

that'll show 'em.

I found two old Guardians in a storage box recently. One from when it looked like Clinton might get impeached and another 10 yr old Saturday edition with my uncle interviewed about abuse he suffered at an Irish industrial school in the 50's. It got me checking if Francis Wheen is still alive, haven't heard much from him for years, although his Marx book appears to be on my bookshelf and I can't remember reading it or where it came from.

new layout will add an exciting retro feel to my anonymous death threats

I found an old G2 from 2001, last year, and was amazed at how much more content it contained than G2 today. It was almost like, say, a TLS.

I briefly got addicted to Kakuro in the Berliner era, but G2 has sucked shit for years.

"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."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jan/15/guardian-new-look-online-katharine-viner

Is it really easier to read? The previous version was easy enough to read.

What, in this context, is 'visual wit'?

"The masthead has a renewed strength and confidence to represent the Guardian’s place and mission in these challenging times."

This seems like cant, to an embarrassing degree.

I think I should try wearing energetic colours, see if they rub off

newspaper colours always rub off, it's why i never read them

(tbf the non-colours are worse)

(lol hullo there to a surprise visit from my joke-no-joke answer why i stopped reading dailies in c.1990 when it was actually a bit relevant to the experience of same)

Katharine Viner was on TODAY this morning in an interview with John Humphrys who had the temerity to ask her about a gender pay gap at the Guardian.

Now I think about this, it seems particularly bizarre - a) because JH has disgraced himself over the issue and possibly shouldn't be allowed to report on it; b) because it isn't what today's specific Guardian story (ie: the relaunch) is about.

JH interviewed very badly but I heard KV say that the Guardian had gone from losing £38m to losing £25m to breaking even next year.

Viner commits the Guardian to follow five principles:

• Develop ideas that help to improve the world, not just critique it.

• Collaborate with readers and others to have greater impact.

• Diversify, to have richer reporting from a representative newsroom.

• Be meaningful in all our work.

• Report fairly on people as well as power and find things out. This underpins all of the above.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/15/five-principles-guardian-editor-readers-open-door

Somebody who can say that one of their 5 principles is 'Be meaningful in all our work' does not inspire confidence.

And this: 'Report fairly on people as well as power and find things out' - seems to roll 2 or 3 things together.

It doesn't give the impression that she is very good at thinking clearly.

have they said anything about how much they spent on the redesign?

• Develop ideas that help to improve the world, not just critique it.

be craven centrists at every opportunity

• Collaborate with readers and others to have greater impact.

source free content from any mug willing to offer it

• Diversify, to have richer reporting from a representative newsroom.

while at the same time cutting down the number of people we employ as often as we can

• Be meaningful in all our work.

not a great start since this is meaningless

• Report fairly on people as well as power and find things out. This underpins all of the above.

see point one

shdn't really go into detail but I have a friend who is probably not gonna bother freelance writing for the Graun any more because the pay is nowhere near enough to justify the amount of work put in

‘find things out’ is both cracking me up and making me angry

pretty sure "report fairly on people" means "John Harris continues to offer a platform to racist provincials"

reprot fairly on people unless they're jeremy corbyn

"report fairly on the Lib Dems no matter how funny they are"