Palmer Watson only has a three-person team, but it has taken on the redesign of several papers, including The Scotsman, the Irish Independent, and Le Monde.

"The only way newspapers will survive is to position themselves as the place to get quality information. Content comes first, but there will be increased care and attention paid to design," says Terry Watson, one of the group’s founders.

What do the winning designs look like?

According to Ally Palmer, the other co-founder, they are simple, clean and functional. In the case of Politiken, the redesign was much based on a new font and typography - Capitolium by Gerard Unger and Flama by Mario Feliciano.

"Through the typography you get a sense of quality, but at the same time you know this is a paper you can trust," says Palmer.

Politiken’s redesign wasn’t based so much on a new flashy aspect as it was on rethinking the newspaper’s way of presenting content. Conventional news reporting was replaced with a bold two-tier system. The overview area is now prepared by online journalists and displays a running header of short news stories.
Below, an “insight” section provides more in-depth analysis and commentary.

"The team at Politiken had woken up to the fact the internet had to be taken into account. They wanted to compete by no longer being a newspaper of record, so that when you picked up the paper you didn't feel you'd read it somewhere before," says Palmer.

As such, the design was representative of the evolution of online news and news consumption. Palmer’s newspaper background (former deputy editor of the Scotsman) also helped him think in terms of more than purely esthetic design.

"It's not just about making a paper look more attractive. It's about making it a better product. It's about presenting content more appropriately. It's also about addressing weaknesses."

Take a look at the Politiken design here.

Source: Media Guardian