London calling: details behind the guardian’s reinvention

The Guardian: By the numbers
From Mark Porter’s “Reinventing The Guardian” session, Saturday morning (although it felt much ealier than it really was)

By the numbers
>> Six figure budget for development of typography
>> 200+: The number of colour palette press tests printed before the redesign launched

Porter on changing the logo of The Guardian (which was contentious in some circles at the time of the redesign):

“There’s a danger of confusing what’s familiar with what’s good.”

“I’ve never been comfortable with this Garamond-Helvetica relationship (of the original logo).”

“This is a piece of 1980s design. (It’s) the typographic equivalent of wearing an Armani jacket with the sleeves pushed up.” (Think Miami Vice’s fashion-challenged Sonny Crocket).

So just how much did he dislike the original logo — so much that, in a promotional commerical for the redesigned paper, the final scene shows a wrecking ball literally smashing the old logo to reveal the new one (at 41 seconds, below).

On fame and glory
The Guardian won an SND World’s Best Award, which Porter said was nice. An honour, really. But winning the Black Pencil Award? “I’m sorry that meant even more to us since it meant recognition in the design world outside of newspapers.”