The Guardian of the Spectacle
An ideological analysis of newspaper design and proposals for détournement
Krister Bladh
Field of study: Graphic Design
Tutor: Anders Ljungmark
Spring 2010
Acknowledgements
This study is an undergraduate thesis for a Bachelor of Design at Malmö University, School
of Arts and Communication. An important part of the study is the series of screenprints that
were made but which can unfortunately only be reproduced here. Visit my website for more
and better photographs. I would like to thank my tutor Anders Ljungmark, Matilda Plöjel for
her invaluable input, and Bengt Andersson and everyone at (3)Screen in Malmö.
© 2010 The author.
www.kristerbladh.co.uk
Published in Sweden by Malmö University, School of Arts and Communication,
through MUEP (Malmö University Electronic Publishing). http://dspace.mah.se
Published internationally by Lulu.com, printed on demand.
http://stores.lulu.com/detournement
ISBN: 978-0-557-47522-3
Typography: Miller, Helvetica Neue.
Abstract
How can the graphic design of a popular, contemporary newspaper be détourned to reveal
its ideological functioning? With inspiration
from Guy Debord’s The Society of the Spectacle, I analyse one issue of British daily The
Guardian and arrive at a model suggesting
that the more constant and implicit elements
show greater potential for being exaggerated
or manipulated.
An adapted form of détournement – a
method developed by the Situationists of
mid-20th century Paris – is applied to these
elements, resulting in redesigns of five front
pages of The Guardian. The printing technique best suited for the redesigns is found
to be screenprinting (in accordance with the
target audience of the project), and each front
page is printed in an edition of 50. Copies are
sent to the paper’s creative directors and editor as a reversed subscription, in addition to
being exhibited in Malmö in May-June 2010.
Together with this thesis, the prints aim to
inform users and producers of the newspaper
of the ideological consequences of design. The
project aims to inspire further research by design scholars and to show designers how to
work practically towards a more democratic
and transparent news media climate where
communication is mutual instead of one-way.
Contents
Keywords
Guy Debord
situationist
design studies
détournement
The Guardian
ideological
newspaper
newspaper design
screenprinting
Introduction
7
Aims and objectives
7
Scope
7
Background
7
State of the field
9
Theory
11
Methodology
13
Definitions
14
Structure
15
Design as ideology
16
Meanings of a newspaper
16
Using détournement
17
The Guardian analysed
21
Method
22
Photography
23
Layout (and grid)
23
Typography
25
Graphics
26
Advertisements
27
Format
27
Materiality
38
Conclusions
29
The Guardian redesigned
31
Process
32
Specifications
33
Introduction
Aims and objectives
Presentation
41
Conclusions and summary
43
Implications of research
43
Evaluations
43
Recommendations for further research
44
List of figures
45
References
46
Appendix
49
1 Scans of analysed issue
50
2 Sources of distant elements
58
This is a study of the consequences the design
of popular newspapers have on contemporary
society and its dissemination of information.
It takes an ideological angle on the subject
with inspiration from Guy Debord’s still influential The Society of the Spectacle from
1967, asking: How can the graphic design of
a popular, contemporary newspaper be détourned (cf. Method) to reveal its ideological
functioning? The objective of the project is
to carry out an in-depth analysis of a single
newspaper as well as the redesign of its front
page, as one step towards implementing the
results of the analysis. The primary aim is to
work towards a more democratic news media
environment, by informing the newspaper
and its readership of this issue. The secondary
aim is to identify avenues for further research
and recommended action for designers.
3 Original files
62
Scope
4 Presentation material
67
5 Guardian Collection brochure
69
6 Sizes and rates for ads
70
7 Sydsvenskan - så funkar det
72
The study is limited to the analysis of the
main section of one issue of one newspaper.
To make the study easier to understand globally, the object of study should be in the English language because although the content
of the news is not analysed, the reader is required to understand it, as formal properties
often derive from or are inseparable from the
content. The analysis will locate the production of ideological meanings in the newspaper’s form, both material and aesthetic. How
ideology is defined in the study is explained
under Definitions below.
The analysis leads to an outline of five
imperative strategies for redesign, which are
applied to five different front pages respectively. The five strategies are by necessity
concerned with design aspects that are realistically open to considerable variation. This
excludes factors like printing technique or
print runs, since these provide both me and
the paper itself with restricted options. But
since both printing technique and print run
will differ from the original newspaper, these
choices are instead based on research and the
1
requirements of the target audience.
The target audience of the redesign should
be familiar with the paper chosen, and is thus
narrowed down to the paper’s staff and readership. That they will be able to partake of the
results cannot be guaranteed, but an effort to
reach them is made. The nature of this and
any other presentations of the redesign and
indeed of this thesis are congruent with the
theoretical and methodological framework
used and motivated by it. An evaluation of
the success of the redesign itself will not be
included due to practical and time restraints.
Background
The newspaper that has been singled out for
study is the British daily The Guardian. Originally named The Manchester Guardian, it
has traditionally been known as a left-of-centre liberal publication. It has a strong cultural
section and an obvious interest in culture
(e.g. publishing their own books via Guardian Books) and design (maintaining a bold
and distinctive look). David Hillman created
the previous design of the newspaper, which
it kept for 17 years. The old nameplate combined an italic Garamond ‘The’ with a bold
Helvetica ‘Guardian’ and, notably for its time,
bold sans serif type was used for headlines
throughout, symbolising their political edge.
With the redesign in 2005 the paper also
changed format, from the traditional broadsheet to the smaller Berliner format (a slightly
taller tabloid) popular on the continent. New
typefaces were commissioned exclusively for
the newspaper and the Guardian Collection
with its core typeface Guardian Egyptian
was designed by Paul Barnes and Christian
Schwartz. The collection is now available for
licensing from Commercial Type for 1,200
USD.1
The Guardian also exists as an online version at www.guardian.co.uk, and through that
web site one can access digital versions of the
today’s and older issues in PDF format, for a
subscription fee. The tag line saying that you
cf. http://commercialtype.com/typefaces/guardian for samples and individual pricing. By coincidence the sample
text used if you choose English language is lifted from The Society of the Spectacle.
7|76
Introduction
Why The Guardian?
• A wide readership and international repute (see below for circulation numbers).
• In the English language.
• Redesigned in 2005, which means that its look has not yet been outmoded.2
• Its current design was created in-house and is here assumed to be in line with their
preferences and stance in all aspects.3
• Its design can be considered successful due to the awards it has received. (There
would be no point in altering an unsuccessful design, as it would need to be changed
anyway.) They were awarded Best Designed Paper in the European Newspaper
Awards in 2005-2006 and DA&D Design’s Yellow Pencil Awards in 2006. The internationally influential Society For News Design (founded in 1979) elected them the
World’s Best Designed newspaper in 2006 and 2008.
• A professed interest in and openness to design, visible through its experiments with
type and grid.4
• A relative susceptibility to the political aims of this project, thus offering a larger
probability of success.
can view them “just as they are printed in the
UK” is not completely true as the PDFs only
have normal screen resolution and would not
look as crisp as the real paper, if printed at
full size. It is a useful feature for non-UK residents however, since the “international edition” that is published around the world lacks
all supplements except for a thinned-down
version of g2, the daily second section of the
paper. Furthermore, it is completely printed
in black and white except for the front and
back pages of the main section, and does not
sport the same printing quality due to being
printed in local presses streamlined for other
papers.
The Guardian is printed in full colour
and had a circulation of 313,026 copies daily
in 2009. The readership was estimated to
1,420,000 by the National Readership Study
in the same year.6 It is published Monday to
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Saturday and replaced by its sister paper The
Observer on Sundays. A digest of both papers
is published as The Guardian Weekly (also
including material from The Washington Post
and Le Monde). They are part of the Guardian Media Group which is owned by the Scott
Trust. For this study, only the main section of
the regular UK edition is considered.
For comparative purposes regarding design aspects not covered in previous studies,
local right-of-centre, liberal daily Sydsvenskan will be used for reference. It is one of
the most read newspapers in Sweden with
an estimate of 311,000 readers daily (by Orvesto Konsument, 2008).7 It was redesigned
in March 2009, with all typefaces replaced by
Miller, Moderno and interestingly Guardian
Sans and the newly available Guardian Compact.8 The only retained typographic element
is Peter Bruhn’s nameplate using a custom
James de Vries uses it as an example of current example of good newspaper design in his article “Newspaper
Design as Cultural Change” in Visual Communication, January 2008, Vol. 7, No. 5, p. 6.
For an exhaustive formulation of the Guardian brand cf. the “Living Our Values” section of their web site (http://
www.guardian.co.uk/values/0,,1166317,00.html), as well as their editorial code (http://image.guardian.co.uk/sysfiles/Guardian/documents/2007/06/14/EditorialCode2007.pdf)
The Guardian, ”Awards” [web page] under Guardian Print Centre > Awards. Copyright: Guardian News and Media
Ltd. 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/gpc/awards [accessed on 2010-03-01].
cf. these two articles: Patrick Burgoyne, “Guardian Gives Shape to Obama’s Words” on Creative Review: CR Blog
[the journal’s weblog], posted January 19, 2009. http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2009/january/guardiangives-shape-to-obamas-words [accessed 2010-02-16 including reader comments]. Richard Turley, “Off the Grid”
[web page] on The Design Observer Group Sites: Observatory, posted July 7 2007, Copyright: Observer Media
LLC. http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=5667 [accessed 2010-02-16 including reader comments]
Guardian News & Media, ”Circulation & Readership” [web page] under Advertising information from Guardian
News & Media > The Guardian > Circulation & Readership. http://www.adinfo-guardian.co.uk/the-guardian/guardian-circulation-and-readership.shtml [accessed on 2010-03-01].
Sydsvenskan, ”Om Sydsvenskan” [web page]. http://sydsvenskan.se/obs/article93896/Om-Sydsvenskan-.html
[accessed on 2010-03-01].
Benjamin Peetre, “Så hittar du i nya formen” in Sydsvenskan [”Så funkar det” unique supplement], March 7th
2009, pp. 4-5.
8|76
made font from the radical redesign in 2004,
when the paper also switched to tabloid format.9
State of the field
There has been considerable research conducted in visual culture studies and media
studies about news media and their contents.
While discourse analyses of, and semiotic approaches to text and image and their combinations abound – especially concerning the
new media (e.g. television and the internet)
– the visual form these texts and images are
contained in is often overlooked. The traditional, printed newspaper tends to be seen
as obsolete, perhaps even doomed. On other
hand there is a generous amount of books on
practical newspaper design, ranging back to
the 1960’s when newspapers started to incorporate design knowledge into the production.
As technology has progressed new books and
new editions have appeared, but since the
1990’s publications have diminished as newspapers get increasingly concerned with making the leap into the digital news market and
finding ways of compensating for diminishing
sales. Those books are often not critical but
based on professional knowledge and they
usually take the form of the handbook or the
case studies book. They address the functional and structural aspects of design. Attempts
to combine this knowledge with analysis and
media discourse research have been made,
but only in cursory terms.10
One important study was carried out at
The Poynter Institute for Media Studies by
Mario R. Garcia and Pegie Stark in 1990-91.
Using Eye-Trac technology (monitoring of
eye pupil movement) developed by Gallup
Applied Science they analysed mainly the
impact of colour in newspapers, and the re-
9
10
11
12
13
14
sulting book Eyes On the News has carried an
authority at least in the newspaper industry.11
This rather positivist approach aimed merely
to improve newspaper design and thus boost
sales, but it was the first major endeavour to
give design practice grounding in reliable research. Previous studies, like those of Sandra
Utt and Steve Pasternak in 1985, The Poynter
Institute in the same year, and Ron F. Smith
in 1988 had shown conflicting results regarding the use of colour in newspapers and were
based on unreliable research, which could not
prevent elements of the papers’ contents to
influence the outcome.12
In 1994 designer and graphic arts professor Kevin G. Barnhurst published Seeing the
Newspaper, a ground-breaking introduction
to the history and meanings of the visual elements of a newspaper.13 It is not an academic
study but rather an anecdotal and personal
account that relies to some degree on professional experience. It contains several interesting “exercises” that provide natural paths for
research. The final exercise entitled simply
“Seeing the Newspaper” is more or less what
I have done in my analysis with the exception
that Barnhurst calls for a “universal” analysis
that is seemingly context-free. It is also thoroughly steeped in the American history and
practice of printing and news-reporting, and
furthermore uses its visuals for illustration
rather than concrete examples.
Robert Craig approached the field from
the opposite direction, as Professor of Communication at Colorado University and editor
of the Communication Theory journal, when
he argued “towards a semiotics of graphic design” in a 1990 article for Design Issues, called
“Ideological Aspects of Publication Design”.14
Craig does not delve deeply but his call for a
new awareness of the consequences of design
was answered by Gunther Kress and Theo van
Bruhn Family, “Portfolio: Sydsvenskan” [web page and slides]. http://www.bruhnfamily.com/portfolio/sydsvenskan.asp [accessed on 2010-03-01]
The best overview of the field I have encountered is Lynne Cooke’s “A visual convergence of print, television, and
the internet: charting 40 years of design change in news presentation” in New Media & Society, February 2005,
Vol. 7, No. 1, pp. 22-46.
Mario R. Garcia & Pegie Stark, Eyes On the News, St. Petersburg, FL: The Poynter Institute for Media Studies,
1991.
For Smith’s study and a summary of the other two cf. Ron F. Smith, “How Design and Color Affect Reader Judgment of Newspapers” in Newspaper Research Journal, 1989, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 75-86.
Kevin G. Barnhurst, Seeing the Newspaper. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
Robert Craig, “Ideological Aspects of Publication Design” in Design Issues, MIT Press, Spring 1990, Vol. 6, No. 2,
pp. 18-27.
9|76
Introduction
Leeuwen, whose 1998 article “Front Pages:
(The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout”
goes a step further.15 They present a model
that approaches the newspaper as what is
called a complex sign in semiotics, and use
that model to analyse front pages of several
well-known European newspapers, including The Guardian. The model works best for
aspects of layout but has provided some useful insight for my own analysis, which looks
instead at the whole spectrum of design, but
only for one publication.
The most recent study of relevance I have
found is an article by Wilson Lowrey, that addresses the influence of social factors on design.16 In 2003 he suggested that newspaper
design is not only influenced by economic,
technological and wider cultural changes. He
found that the prominence of graphics in a
paper is proportional to the number of people
working with the design of the paper. It is exactly whether such organisational but also financial and political factors are translated by
the design that I aim to discover.
I have also reviewed the literature aimed
at the industry, both to improve my own
knowledge of newspaper design and to find
out which design aspects newspapers are actually concerned with. Mario R. Garcia’s Contemporary Newspaper Design seems a classic
in the field and has been revived in new editions until 1993.17 Garcia writes in the preface that this (third) edition is virtually a new
book, and gives it the subtitle “a structural approach”. While including chapters on typography, grid construction, information graphic, colour use and so on, it is apparent that all
chapters deal with these in relation to layout.
Garcia propagates the good design, instead of
the traditional make up, of a newspaper page,
and does not hesitate to prove his arguments
using his own research findings, especially
those of Eye-Trac tests.
The more insightful literature on typographic design aspects is instead to be found
in case studies, or wherever typographers and
designers write about their redesigns for different newspapers. One such book is Contemporary Newspaper Design. Shaping the News
in the Digital Age: Typography & Image on
Modern Newsprint, edited by John D. Berry
and containing pieces by such luminaries of
the field as Roger Black, Simon Esterton and
Miguel Angel Gómez.18 This book was published in 2004 and might well have included
another newspaper designer, James de Vries’
more recent “Newspaper Design as Cultural
Change”, which appeared instead in a 2008
issue of Visual Communication.19
The most astute work made in the area
however, and the most helpful for my project,
is actually artistic. Conceptual artist Sarah
Charlesworth’s photographic series Modern
History (started in 1977 with the most recent
work created in 2003) is an interrogation of
the “formal hierarchies of power as well as
the visual manifestation of editorial perspective”.20 Every work in the series consists of
black and white photographic prints made
from masked newspapers, printed at the original scale. Two of the most well-known works
in the series are April 20, 1978 and April 21,
1978. They follow the worldwide spread of the
Red Brigade’s announcement of their assassination of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro,
and the following day, a photo of Moro still
alive but held in captivity by the Red Brigade.
For the latter work, front pages of 45 international newspapers were printed with all
elements erased except for nameplates and
photos. It reveals several interesting factors of
newspaper layout, not least the weight given
to this particular event in relation to other,
perhaps local, news in various countries.21
15 Gunther Kress & Theo van Leeuwen, “Front Pages: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout” in Approaches to
Media Discourse (edited by Allan Bell & Peter Garrett). Oxford: Blackwell 1998, pp. 186-219.
16 Wilson Lowrey, “Explaining Variability in Newspaper Design: An Examination of the Role of Newsroom Subgroups” in Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Summer 2003, Vol. 80, No. 2, pp. 348-367.
17 Mario R. Garcia, Contemporary Newspaper Design: A Structural Approach (3rd edition). Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1993.
18 John D. Berry (ed.), Contemporary Newspaper Design. Shaping the News in the Digital Age: Typography & Image
on Modern Newsprint. West New York, NJ: Mark Batty Publisher, 2004.
19 James de Vries, “Newspaper Design as Cultural Change” in Visual Communication, January 2008, Vol. 7, No. 5,
pp. 5-24.
20 Sarah Charlesworth Studio, “About Modern History” under Series > Modern History. http://www.sarahcharlesworth.net/series-view.php?album_id=34&about_album=1 [accessed on 2010-03-01]
21 Sarah Charlesworth Studio, “April 21, 1978” under Series > Modern History > April 21, 1978 > About. http://www.
sarahcharlesworth.net/series-view.php?album_id=34&subalbum_id=53 [accessed on 2010-03-01]
10|76
Figure 1
Two of the front pages
included in April 21,
1978. Sarah Charlesworth; 1978; 45 black
and white prints; varying
sizes; Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven,
Holland; Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los
Angeles, USA; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, USA; Walker
Art Center, Minneapolis,
USA. Reproduction
from Charlesworth’s
website.22
The most recent works in the series Verbs
(1978, released in 2003) and Nouns (2003)
show an interesting development of her approach, with two front pages of The New York
Times reprinted in the same fashion (Nouns
in colour) but also leaving the verbs and
nouns, respectively, in place. The series Modern History seen as a whole raises pressing
questions about the way newspapers are seen:
what happens when we confront an everyday
object such as this in the sealed-off context of
the art gallery, where we cannot engage with
it beyond mere contemplation? Like Debord,
Charlesworth sees photography as the dominant language of her contemporary culture.
“She maintains that how we picture our relationship to the world [...] and even our values
and beliefs are informed through photography – specifically print media (advertising,
journalism) and television”, writes Jennifer
Rosenberg in a synopsis of a talk held by
Charlesworth in 1999.23 Following Charlesworth, I attempt here to expand the ideological analysis of newspaper design beyond
matters of layout only. Charlesworth started
with the layout and use of photographs and
then started including textual content, but I
instead of moving in that direction I have
instead turned (like Kress and van Leeuwen)
towards the overall design practice that includes typographic treatment, colour use,
printing conventions etc.
Theory
“So long as the realm of necessity
remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity.
The spectacle is the bad dream of
modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its
wish for sleep. The spectacle is
the guardian of that sleep.”24
The spectacle is a philosophical concept invented by Guy Debord (1931-1994) and related to, arguably even prefiguring Jean Baudril-
22 Gunther Kress & Theo van Leeuwen, “Front Pages: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper Layout” in Approaches to
Media Discourse (edited by Allan Bell & Peter Garrett). Oxford: Blackwell 1998, pp. 186-219.
23 Jennifer Rosenberg & Stacy McCarroll, “Artist presentation: Sarah Charlesworth” [synopsis and analysis of artist
talk at The National Graduate Seminar of The American Photography Institute, June 3-12, 1999] on The Photography Institute under Journals > 1999, Hosted by: Columbia University, School of the Arts. http://www.thephotographyinstitute.org/journals/1999/charlesworth.html [accessed 2010-02-17]
24 Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle [translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, originally published as La
société du spectacle in 1967]. New York: Zone Books, 1994, p. 18.
11|76
Introduction
lard’s Simulacra and Simulations of 1985.25
Like his “desert of the real”, Debord’s society
of the spectacle is not readily explained although evasively omnipresent. It must be
understood in its original French, which adds
the meaning of “theatre” and “play”.26 It is the
product of advanced capitalism and describes
a state where images have replaced objects
and people. The spectacle is not the collection
of these images, Debord writes, “it is a social
relationship between people that is mediated by images”.27 The theory of the spectacle
gets its fullest elaboration in The Society of
the Spectacle published in 1967. The book is
a radically rhetorical polemic composed as
a series of theses, of which the quote above
this paragraph is number 21. It is a telling example of Debord’s literary style, especially in
the first chapter of the book. He goes on, in
subsequent chapters, to condemn the “state
bureaucracy” of the Soviet Republic for being
as much of a repressive ideology as the democracy of the West. They only way forward
is instead through the formation of workers’ councils, an idea originating in Western
Marxism as developed by thinkers like György Lukács (1885-1971) and Antonio Gramsci
(1891-1937). According to Debord however,
the proletariat had now expanded beyond the
working class, since the effects of the spectacle has invaded the areas of non-work, leisure time that is.28 Like Baudrillard, Debord
can be blamed for a relative dystopianism:
that what had once been a unity was now becoming increasingly separated and alienating. Debord did not ask for retrogression to
a previous state of affairs however. Instead he
worked to develop strategies for resisting and
reversing the spectacle. All hope was not lost,
indeed the “essence and underpinning” of his
contemporary society was the reciprocity of
reality and spectacle: Just as the spectacle is
real, reality has a tendency to erupt within the
spectacle.29 The spectacle could be momentarily suspended, but the free construction of
situations, or new realities, was only possible
“beyond the ruins of the modern spectacle”,
from which follows that modern society and
all its structures must be destroyed.30
Debord himself had a background in the
artistic avant-garde of Paris, where he was
initially a member of the Lettrist group of Dada-influenced artists. Together with Danish
artist and provocateur Asger Jorn, he formed
his own group called the Situationist International (SI from here on) in 1958.31 With the
total revolution of society and everyday life
as their goal, they recruited members all over
Europe and sought to overturn the separation
of politics and art. Their creation of anti-art
objects and manifestations eventually dwindled out as Debord and his nearest followers
focused on theory and political analyses that
were published in their own journal Internationale Situationniste. This move might have
been influenced by Debord’s brief collaboration with Claude Lefort and the purely political faction Socialisme ou Barbarie (active
1948-68).32 Debord eventually expelled most
of the other members of SI and after the failure in 1968 of students and workers to unite
in revolution, the Situationist International
was no longer needed and disbanded in 1972.
This was done as if in victory, with Debord
seeing all his work as having been justified
and that proof had been given that the situationist ideas were now in everyone’s minds.33
Mediatisation features prominently in
Debord’s thinking: media are where the
spectacularisation of life is most tangible,
and news, propaganda and advertising are
mentioned specifically in The Society of the
Spectacle.34 In 1973 Debord created a film
version of the book, which, in similarity to the
short films he had produced during the first
and more artistic era of the SI, consisted of
a monologue (read from the book) recorded
over largely pre-existing visual material. For
the visuals Debord bought old newsreels and
clips from Hollywood films, which were cut
together in sequence to enter into a dialogue
with the soundtrack, in accordance with the
main method of resistance developed by the
SI: détournement.
Methodology
The strategy named détournement was first
defined in 1956 by Debord and the artist Gil
J. Wolman who had also been a member of
the Lettrists. There is no English translation
of this term but “to détourn” will be used here,
meaning approximately to deconstruct or to
turn against itself. In the 1956 article called
“A User’s Guide to Détournement” the current
situation is that art has become superfluous
and that all means of expression must take
Figure 2
Cover of Le retour de
la colonne Durutti by
André Bertrand, 1966,
four pages in black and
white, 37 x 24 cm. It
was distributed by the
student union AFGES in
Strasbourg. Scan found
at La Fourmi Rouge,
http://lafourmirouge.
blogspot.com/2007/08/
blog-post.html, accessed on 2010-03-01.
25 Jean Baudrillard, “Simulacra and Simulations” in Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings (Mark Poster ed.). Stanford:
Stanford University Press, 1988, pp. 166-184.
26 Which is why the Swedish translation of The Society of the Spectacle is closer to “the society of play(acting)”.
27 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, p. 12.
28 ​Ibid., p. 21.
29 ​Ibid., p. 14.
30 Guy Debord, “Report On the Construction of Situations” [1957] in Situationist International Anthology. Revised and
Expanded Edition (Ken Knabb ed.), Berkeley, CA : Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006, p. 40.
31 Peter Wollen, “Bitter Victory: The Art and Politics of the Situationist International” in On the Passage of a Few
People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International, 1957-1972 (Elisabeth Sussman ed.)
[exhibition catalogue]. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1989, p. 20.
32 ​Ibid., p. 20.
33 ​Ibid., p. 27.
34 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, p. 13.
12|76
13|76
Introduction
the shape of propaganda.35 By using existing
objects and messages to create new combinations, new meanings that go beyond a mere
parodic citation can be created. The creation
of objects and messages is thus no longer reserved for the specialised artist or journalist,
but open to all. The détournement creates a
distortion by combining familiar visual or
literary elements or simply placing them in
a new context.36 One of the most common
examples of this practice was the creation
of situationist comics, in which the content
of speech bubbles was replaced to introduce
a political (meta)narrative like that of Le retour de la colonne Durutti (The Return of the
Durutti Column) distributed in Strasbourg in
October 1966 (see Figure 2). A more succinct
definition of détournement can be found in a
1963 text, which describes it as a communication containing its own critique.37 It is this
definition I have opted to work with in this
project.
In 1967 another SI member, René Viénet,
outlined four tactics to pursue with the aid of
détournement. One of these was “the promotion of guerrilla tactics in the mass media” and
he writes that “the fear of such interventions
will make newspaper editors paranoid about
their typesetters, radio managers paranoid
about their technicians, etc.”38 Media in general provided the raw material for most détournements, but before applying this strategy to The Guardian its usefulness in today’s
society must be questioned. The theory of the
spectacle is arguably equally valid today, but
how can détournement successfully be used
to further the goals of this project, which are
more peaceful than instigating a revolution?
A discussion of the chosen method is necessary, before I can proceed with the analysis,
which will in turn identify the aspects of design whose détournement will most effectively reveal their ideological functions.
Another matter that requires addressing is
the deployment of the détournement, without
which it would be pointless. How will communication with the target audience be established? What form of distribution should
be used? Each member of the target audience
cannot be reached, but by aiming straight for
the distribution point (the central office of
The Guardian) the largest possible spread can
be achieved. If successful, the détournement
can result in the further communication of
the project along The Guardian’s own chain
of distribution, be it a reproduction or a mere
mention. The second anticipated presentation of redesigns is the degree show for Design
& Visual Communication opening at Form/
Design Center in Malmö, May 20th 2010. For
the redesign to make sense in this context, it
will be accompanied by a copy of this thesis.
In addition, the manner of presentation of
both thesis and redesigns must be such that
it reinforces the impact of the détournement.
This consideration of the mode of presentation is the final phase of the project.
Definitions
The use of ideology here is not in the classic
Marxist sense as an aspect of the superstructure and thus determined by the economic
base of society, meaning those who are in control of the relations of production. In that case
it would be difficult to determine how art (or
aesthetic form, in this context) can be ideological, unless one thinks of art merely as the
product of the art industry that supports it.
Louis Althusser’s development of the base-superstructure model, which adds the reciprocal influence between the two, is more in tune
with my approach. Media, as an example of an
ideological state apparatus (which is part of
the superstructure), influences the relationships and actions of the base.39 Althusser also
35 Debord & Wolman, “A User’s Guide to Détournement” [originally published in Les Lèvres Nues, May 1956, No. 8]
in Situationist International Anthology. Revised and Expanded Edition (Ken Knabb ed.), Berkeley, CA : Bureau of
Public Secrets, 2006, p. 14.
36 ​Ibid., p. 15.
37 Guy Debord, ”The Situationists and the New Forms of Action in Politics and Art” in Situationist International Anthology. Revised and Expanded Edition (Ken Knabb ed.), p. 402. A text from the exhibition catalogue of “Destruktion af RSG-6” at Galerie Exi, Odense, Denmark, June-July 1963.
38 René Viénet, “The Situationists and the New Forms of Action Against Politics and Art” in Internationale Situationniste, no. 11, October 1967 [translated by Ken Knabb]. http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline/si/against.html [accessed
on 2010-03-01].
39 Paul Mattick, “Ideology” in Oxford Art Online: Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (Michael Kelly ed.). http://www.oxfordartonline.com.ludwig.lub.lu.se/subscriber/article/opr/t234/e0281 [accessed 2010-02-28]
14|76
maintained that the general concept of ideology is non-historical and as immutable as our
unconscious.40 Here Althusser differs from
Debord, who can ultimately be portrayed
as diametrically opposed to Althusser in his
adoption of Marxist thought.41 But Althusser’s
formulation of ideology having material existence echoes Debord’s description of the function of spectacle as the concrete manufacture
of alienation, or capital materialised as image.
Without going as far as Baudrillard – suggesting that ideology does no longer exist as
more than a representation of itself – Debord
proclaims the end of ideologies in the plural
and the conflation of ideology with the spectacle:42
“214. Ideology, whose whole
internal logic led toward what
Mannheim calls “total ideology”
– the despotism of a fragment
imposing itself as the pseudoknowledge of a frozen whole, as
a totalitarian worldview – has
now fulfilled itself in the immobilized spectacle of non-history.
Its fulfillment is also its dissolution into society as a whole. Come
the practical dissolution of that
society itself, ideology – the last
unreason standing in the way
of historical life – must likewise
disappear.”43
The spectacle also has similarities with
Karl Marx’ concept of false consciousness,
especially when described by Debord as saying that “everything that appears is good;
whatever is good will appear”. Like ideology,
it demands “the same passive acceptance that
40
41
42
43
44
is has already secured by means of its seeming
incontrovertibility”.44
To conclude the discussion about ideology, this is not an analysis of how the newspaper industry and its organisation of labour
affects design and vice versa. The “ideological
functioning” mentioned in Aims and objectives is wider than that, and concerns spectacular facets of life in general. The analysis
takes into account how matters such as the
organisation of labour in the newsroom is related to the meanings of the design, but also
the everyday use and disuse of newspapers.
All such ideological meanings of newspaper
design affects our society as a whole, and thus
the spectacle. That society can be affected
positively by creating new meanings is a required assumption on my part.
Structure
After this introduction I shall proceed to
sketch some of the ways newspaper design
can communicate ideologically, followed by
an enquiry into how this process can best be
revealed. How is détournement best implemented, and will it require any form of modification or delimitation? The second chapter
contains the findings of my analysis of one
issue of The Guardian, starting with a discussion of design elements and how these are organised in the study and why. I then present
the conclusions drawn and formulate these
into five strategies for détournement.
The third chapter is a straightforward presentation of the redesign work undertaken.
First a discussion around the design aspects
that differ from the original paper will explain
technical peculiarities of the prints. Reproductions of the five prints, that unfortunately
cannot convey tactile and spacial qualities,
are then provided. Finally, an explanation and
motivation of the various presentations of the
prints will be given, as well as a reflection on
the design of this thesis.
The last chapter contains the general conclusions drawn about newspaper design and
an answer to the thesis. To conclude, I recommend some avenues for further research.
I​bid.
Wollen, p. 56.
Baudrillard, p. 166.
Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, pp. 150-151.
​Ibid., p. 15.
15|76
Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Design as ideology
Whether aesthetic and structural aspects of
a newspaper can carry meaning is not contested in this study. To be able to read the
content of the newspaper in the first place, we
already go beyond the simple recognition of
the object as an instance of the class “newspaper”.45 Most importantly the design influences how we read. Arguably, a newspaper
without visual form – let us say read aloud to
us by another person – would still convey the
same content, but as soon as the message is
not linear we must make a number of decisions, for example which lines of text belong
together as part of single news item, where to
start reading, what distance the paper should
be held at, where it is “appropriate” to read it
etc. All these and other questions can only be
answered in the design of the newspaper.
In which instances are these meanings
ideological? Unquestionably, the content
of a newspaper functions ideologically as a
normalising factor on everyday life. According to Debord, newspapers are just one of a
myriad of examples of a “negation of life that
has invented a visual form for itself”.46 In his
preface to the third French edition of The Society of the Spectacle (1992), the example that
lends most credence to his argumentation for
the increased pervasiveness of the now “integrated” spectacle is the reporting from the
fall of the Berlin wall and the end of communism in Russia: “The phenomenon was duly
noted, dated and deemed sufficiently well
understood” after one day of reporting, and
the event “immediately attained the incontestability of all other signs of democracy”.47
These signs had a verbal element of course,
but also a visual one. The integrated message
served to reinforce the ideology of democracy
– the current ideology according to Debord –
which could also be labelled capitalism.
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
Meanings of a newspaper
Barnhurst gives a helpful introduction to the
possible meanings of a newspaper design by
establishing why it has changed, how design
affects the reader and what consequences it
entails for society.48 It is important to remember the many uses the newspaper has beyond
simply carrying information, and Barnhurst’s
description of it as an all-purpose object that
fills any function from wrapping-paper to
weapon against flies echoes the ubiquitous
texture of life that Debord’s spectacle is. The
connection becomes almost uncanny when
Barnhurst writes about the newspaper’s symbolic meanings, as an “essentially democratic
form”. He says it is “American idealism made
material” and a “watchdog for the Republic”.49
It should also be kept in mind that while practically everyone can afford a newspaper it still
has a price and must thus be seen as a commodity in itself. Democratic commodity or
commodity democracy? The paper is not only
texture, it is also a musty smell, a crackling
sound, something that makes your fingers
dirty or makes you sneeze.50 The newspaper
is a symbol of memory: ephemeral like our
personal recollections and not particularly
noteworthy, newspapers are often insignificant today but can acquire poignancy as old
clippings and time capsules that make us
connect events in our personal lives with the
news of a certain day. Newspapers are rarely
read from front to back like a book, Barnhurst
points out, and quoting Marshall McLuhan,
he writes that people “get into them every
morning like a hot bath”.51 News are scanned
and quickly forgotten, functioning more like a
catharsis that reinforces society’s morals and
dampens discontent.
Rather than looking at these overall
meanings and patterns, Kress and van Leeuwen present a more detailed examination of
Kress and van Leeuwen make the same assumption. Kress & van Leeuwen, p. 218.
Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, p. 14
​Ibid., pp. 9-10.
Barnhurst, p. 4.
​Ibid., pp. 5-6.
​Ibid., p. 7
​Ibid., p. 18
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the newspaper as complex semiotic sign, creating connotations and denotations on several different levels. While the writing is usually the dominant level, the visual level can
both duplicate and complement the writing
or even contradict it.52 They have developed
a model for examining how layout works, and
how it affects the written content. According
to them, layout by itself contains three different axes of signification: information value
(different positions on the page transfer varying values to the text), salience (the attraction
a certain item exerts) and framing (separating and connecting items). This model can
be contested, and it can be argued that other
factors of layout are more important, e.g. the
size allotted to individual stories. The main
problem in studies such as theirs however, is
that the results cannot be proven. Semiotics is
difficult to apply to visual messages because
design is not as logically structured as language. Furthermore, the functioning of design is typically unconscious and is difficult to
measure scientifically separate from content.
Kress’ and van Leeuwen’s study instead relies
on a number of assumptions, such as that an
item located at the bottom of a page has a
more illustrative, specific and practical relation to that which is placed above it.
Not only layout creates meaning however.
As Robert Craig pointed out in 1990, we need
to go beyond the significance of “the location
of an individual story” and study newspaper
design in general as a codified practice.53 A
number of conventions have over time resulted in a design code that concerns the grid,
typography, information graphics and the use
of colour and photographs. Craig’s solution to
determining the meaning of this code is, relying on Roland Barthes, a historical study of
how it has been established. He highlights,
for example, the influence of advertisers and
advertisements on design and the increasing
possibilities allowed by technology.
All aspects of design, Craig says, “must be
subjected to the rigors of ideological analysis”.54 But why? The reason is that newspapers
deliberately conceal the function of design by
adopting an “ideology of objectivity”. They
52
53
54
55
56
57
wish to portray themselves as what Kress and
van Leeuwen identify as monomodal (as opposed to multimodal) vessels of communication and win credibility by merely presenting
the news when they are in fact representing
it. By revealing the ideology we can, as Craig
puts it, “develop ethically and socially responsible forms of visual communication education and practice”.55
Using détournement
But is a historical materialist analysis the best
course of action? Barnhurst implies a different approach when he writes about the freedom inherent in using the newspaper, once
bought.56 Being able to pick and choose, read
what we are interested in, make up our own
opinions and so on is reminiscent of the new
digital versions all newspapers have been
forced to develop. These are driven more and
more by reader-generated information, as
the paper becomes tailored to the individual
and he or she can add comments and vote or
discuss current issues. This does not have to
be a purely virtual practice though. On the
internet, Debord would have said, interactivity actually deepens our alienation to society.
Instead of discussing the news in a café, face
to face with real people, it is much easier to
be opinionated online without caring about
the consequences. How often do reader comments online contribute to one’s understanding of an article? Does a feature like “today’s most popular news” not lead to further
streamlining of news reporting and to the
variety of angles on items suffering? Resisting the spectacle would require the possibility
of actual, real-world action for the reader: the
agency to shape and choose the content, form
and distribution of news, rather than the limited choices supplied by the available papers
on the market. “A critical theory of the spectacle cannot be true unless it joins forces with
the practical movement of negation within
society”, wrote Debord.57 But in fact, newspapers too would contribute from a larger
quantity and quality of reader (i.e. consumer)
input and involvement.
Kress & van Leeuwen, pp. 187-188.
Craig, pp. 18-19.
​Ibid., p. 24.
​Ibid., p. 27.
Barnhurst, p. 18.
Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, p. 143.
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Chapter 1
Détournement is not a strategy aimed at
reform, rather it is a destructive action used
in Debord’s and Wolman’s definition and the
continuation of the quote above is: “and this
negation [...] constitutes the resumption of
revolutionary class struggle”.58 But no détournement undertaken by the situationists ever
succeeded in doing this. They may have produced compelling propaganda, but a worldwide revolution did not come of it. A similar
question is raised by Eric Klinenberg while
discussing French sociologist Pierre Bordieu’s
(1930-2002) field theory in the context of
journalism: can media be used to critique and
change other media? Or more specifically, can
a field be pressured from outside, from below,
by a group of subjects who are themselves objectified by it?59 That is the role of the media
activist.
“Media activists insist that they
are making necessary intrusions,
because mainstreams organizations have failed to live up to their
own professional standards of
fairness and accuracy. They claim
that their political intervention
is designed to help reporters and
editors realize their own craft
values – even though the activists
themselves lack the cultural capital that is necessary to produce
the journalism they desire.”60
I suggest in this study that such gradual
change, occurring when a sufficient number
of activists have been absorbed into the mainstream as new entrants, is possible, and that
détournement can be used to this end. In fact
it may be used toward any political end, from
those of the ultra-left to the ultra-right, as a
restructuring device or machine. Détournement is used in my designs to reverse alien-
ation, to inspire action and thought. I have
chosen to see the spectacle in its ideological
incarnation, but not of a particular ideology.
Debord’s identification of the current ideological hegemony as “democracy” (not meaning democratic in the common sense) was
the result of years of political analysis. For
me to identify and sufficiently motivate such
an identification of a current ideology would
be too difficult a task and it is questionable
if anyone (including Debord) has the capacity
and experience to judge the global community and society. It is also important not to buy
into the Hegelian nature of Debord’s theory:
a supposed unity or harmony that preceded
the increasing separation and specialisation
of society. Just as there is no outside of the
spectacle, there has never been a time when
the citizen actually had control of the media.
Newspaper design can only be changed from
within. The media activist who creates his
own newspaper is merely adding to the separation by creating a new medium, a new field
with its own rules and hierarchies. The activist must instead work as a terrorist, to destroy
the newspaper as it is, before creating anew.
Having thus justified the use of détournement, it remains to determine how it is to
be applied. Out of practicality and economy I
have limited the redesign project to five front
pages. That still allows for a number of different possibilities: the combination of
• newspaper form with forms that are alien
to it: e.g. using type from road signs (or
the reverse: newspaper type on a road
sign).
• newspaper form with materials typical of
other designed products: e.g. a front page
printed on metal used for road signs (or
the reverse: road signs printed on newsprint).
• newspaper form with formats associated
with other objects: e.g. a front page printed the size of a road sign (or the reverse:
a road sign cut to tabloid size and shape).
• newspaper form with content from other
media: e.g. a front page with the bus timetable (or the reverse: a bus timetable with
news item headlines instead of departure
times).
58 I​bid.
59 Eric Klinenberg, “Channeling into the Journalistic Field: Youth Activism and the Media Justice Movement” in Bordieu and the Journalistic Field (Rodney Benson & Erik Neveu ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press 2005, p. 175.
60 ​Ibid.
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Needless to say, all possible combinations
of these within each redesign would also be
possible. To narrow this virtually endless array of options down to an easier handled
number that will also enable a more succinct
analysis of The Guardian, one can consult
Debord’s and Wolman’s laws on the use of détournement:
“It is the most distant detourned
element which contributes most
sharply to the overall impression, and not the elements that
directly determine the nature of
this impression. […] The distortions introduced in the detourned
elements must be as simplified as
possible, since the main impact of
a détournement is directly related
to the conscious or semiconscious
recollection of the original contexts of the elements. […] Détournement is less effective the
more it approaches a rational reply. […] Détournement by simple
reversal is always the most direct
and the least effective.”61
From the second law it follows that the
viewer must be able to recognise what he sees
as (a version of ) The Guardian. This can easily be achieved using news items that were in
the actual issue, the same typefaces, format,
nameplate, newsprint etc. In relation to the
first law, I have also taken it to mean that the
strongest impact of the distortion introduced
is achieved by letting it become the most “distant détourned element”. The other part of
the compound message should thus be natural to us, like the original front page of an issue of The Guardian. As a guide in my analysis and my implementation of détournement
in the redesign I therefore use the following
combination of material:
• The first element will be constant for all
five redesigns: the general visual form
as it exists now, in the shape of the front
page. This can also be described as the
representation of the Guardian brand,
or identity, and does not include aspects
such as material, context, size etc. The visual form can be captured using a camera,
photocopier, digital scanner or similar.
From here on, I shall call this the familiar
element.
• The second element will be alien to the
original design. This can be anything from
a distortion in the use of typography, grid
and images to the context the print is seen
or used in. From here on, I shall call this
the distant element.
• To minimize the risk of non-recognition,
the redesign of each front page I will only
incorporate material found in the pages of
the same issue. This will also preclude any
risk of repetition over the five front pages.
Something needs to be said too, about the
“practical movement” mentioned earlier, since
I am not aiming to connect with the actions
of a revolutionary group. What other possible action could result from using détournement for this project? Consulting Debord’s
thoughts on the apparatus of mass media, he
describes this “communication” as essentially
one-way: “The concentration of the media
thus amounts to the monopolization by the
administrators of the existing system of the
means to pursue their particular form of administration.”62 In accordance with my aim,
the desired resulting action from this project
would be a breaking-up of the one-way nature of the communication that the design of
newspapers produces. It is thus valuable for
the project if the détournements made can be
repeated and varied by any individual, lacking
specialisation in design, computer literacy,
printing or the economical means required
for design software, computer hardware and
quality print services. This will have consequences for the methods and techniques used
for creating the redesigns and the matter is
addressed further in the opening of the chapter Redesign.
61 Debord & Wolman, pp. 16-17.
62 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle, pp. 19-20.
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The desired effects be seen in the light
of the wider attention now given to users in
the human-centred design practice that the
so-called semantic turn has resulted in. The
semantic turn is described by Klaus Krippendorff as a process embedded in the overall
change in society from industrial to postindustrial and it is mirrored in philosophy’s linguistic turn led by Richard Rorty.63 The seeds
of the semantic turn were sown at the Ulm
School of Design (Hochschule für Gestaltung)
in 1960’s Germany.64 It is essentially a move
away from the “form follows function” axiom
to the meanings people can make of artifacts
and images: design has to start “conceptualizing artifacts, material or social, that have a
chance of meaning something to their users,
that aid larger communities, and that support
a society that is in the process of reconstructing itself in unprecedented ways and at record
speeds”.65 The field Krippendorff is concerned
with is product semantics, and examples are
taken from industrial design and interaction
design, but the argument can be as easily applied to a modular newspaper as the modular
manufacturing of cars.66 Newspaper design is
in several respects still stuck in the functionalist reasoning of the industrial era. But if a
contemporary manufacturer of cars can sup63
64
65
66
67
68
ply customised products while still using the
same production line, then why can a paper
not be made to order? Customisation of the
news is already taking place online, and is
helping to create a feedback loop. This is exactly what Krippendorff has in mind when he
envisions design as a discourse that constantly redesigns itself, in a closed circuit.67
This semantic turn has much in common
with another “turn”, that of détournement. A
détournement can be seen as the embodiment
of discourse redesigning itself, especially formulated as the communication that contains
its own critique. Designing can even be seen
as the kind of action everyone must undertake, from Debord’s perspective. If “everyday
design is a way to realize not just artifacts but
also their designers” then design is the realisation of everyday life that Debord, inspired
by Henri Lefebvre’s (1901-1991) Critique of
Everyday Life, wanted the situationists to
work towards.68 We need to be made aware of
the designing that we do and the design that
we can do but do not.
The next step is an account of the method
and result of my analysis of one issue of The
Guardian, to determine how best to utilise the
possibilities of the distant element.
Klaus Krippendorff, The Semantic Turn. A New Foundation For Design. Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2006, pp. 1-23.
​Ibid., p. 1.
​Ibid., p. xvii.
​Ibid., pp. 16-17.
​Ibid., p. 12 & 32.
The quote is lifted from Krippendorff, p. 31. Lefebvre’s influence on Debord (via André Breton) is mentioned in
Wollen, p. 34.
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Chapter 2
The Guardian analysed
To analyse the graphic design of a newspaper
it must somehow be broken down into graphic elements or groupings. Herein lies an obvious problem: how separated does the reader
actually perceive the different elements as
being? A newspaper may seem obviously divided into stories. However, a story can span
several pages, or even jump from the front
page to a continuation somewhere else in the
paper or its supplements. The division is not
as simple as newspaper > sections > pages >
stories. A story may include photographs,
maps or other graphics, pull-quotes, lists,
sub-stories etc. Nonetheless there is a form
that is most common to every level. The backbone of these common forms is what I have
chosen to call a constant. A constant can be
the newspaper’s nameplate or the grid used in
the layout software. Constants cannot be varied, except in emergency or by accident. The
most variable aspect of the newspaper is of
course the content, which must never be the
repeated. A wide spectrum exists in-between
these opposites, and somewhere along it, design takes place: an endlessly varying material is channelled into and edited to fit into a
constant but flexible frame.
The flexibility of this frame, or grid, varies
for every newspaper but is always connected
to another axis, which I wish to describe as
implicit/explicit. Implicit could also be understood as immanent, or an intrinsic quality
of a newspaper. The explicit can similarly be
an extraneous quality, something that refers
beyond the paper itself. All aspects of design
are in part explicit (the reader thinks actively
about them and questions them) and in part
implicit (the reader takes them for granted
and gloss them over) and there is no demarcated line between them. Reading the introduction to Garcia’s Contemporary Newspaper
Design, which argues that readers do not care
about design (i.e. the best design goes unnoticed), it is easy to think of the content/
constant and implicit/explicit axes as parallel, running side by side: the more constant
an element is (the more it has to do with the
design) the more implicit and less explicit it
is. It should soon become clear however, that
the case is not quite so simple. A design element can sometimes be eye-catching (though
this is uncommon in newspaper design) and
often successful design can be noticed even if
not thought about critically.
A more fruitful model is the one outlined
in Figure 3.1, which has developed during
this project. The various areas of design (se
items 2 and 3 under Method below) can be
charted in the diagram as more or less defined ellipses. For example the format of the
newspaper is a constant that is never varied,
unless the whole newspaper is made over into
implicit
format
deviation
explicit
content
constant
implicit
material
format
typography
layout
photo
graphics
ads
explicit
content
constant
Figure 3.1
The relationship between the content/constant
and implicit/explicit axes. The top diagram shows
how a group of design aspects (e.g. related to
format) can have a mean relationship (where the
lines cross), a natural variation (inside the circle)
and deviations (cases that fall outside of it). Similarly, other areas (perhaps overlapping) can be
circled in, as in the hypothetical bottom diagram.
21|76
Chapter 2
» design »
implicit
assumed relationship
explicit
content
implicit
constant
» detournément »
a new size. The reader does not think explicitly about the format and is rather supposed
to take it for granted. It is thus more implicit
than explicit, but still contains a degree of explicitness that comes to the fore when a paper changes format, like The Guardian did
(from broadsheet to tabloid). It then becomes
apparent how important the format is, especially for the identity or brand of a newspaper,
and that it is or has been the result of an active decision on the part of the newspaper. An
example from the other end of the spectrum
could be advertisements. They are exchanged
regularly and are explicit in their nature,
because their function is to grab your attention. But they also have an implicit character of being “unimportant” and furthermore,
equally unimportant. All the ads in a paper
are normalised to a similar level through the
design of the paper, by standardising the sizes
and where they are placed. Ads are therefore
most powerful before we realise what they are
and can dismiss them, which is why ads often
play at being part of the newspaper, like the
Volkswagen ad on page three in the analysed
issue.69
The graph in Figure 3.2 represents the
assumed relationship, which I have just described: more constant means more implicit.
The diagram suggests an interesting hypothesis regarding the susceptibility for détournement. Because détournement is concerned
with explication, a manipulation of design
could be more effective than a manipulation
of textual content. This is because elements
further to the right in the diagram can be
made much more explicit than they are, while
elements relating to content (to the left) can
only be made slightly more explicit. But this
can also be misleading, as simply because the
content is explicit that does not necessarily
mean that we think of the ideology of the text.
It is conceivable that an exaggerated explicitness of a design element will only make the
viewer think about the design in an appreciative mode and not an ideologically critical
one. There are many kinds of explicitness, but
it must be stressed that it is an ideological
explicitness I am aiming for. The deviations
must be created to make the viewer aware of
an ideological function.
Photography
improved relationship
explicit
content
constant
Figure 3.2
The mean relationships seem to line up, along the
relationship designers seem to believe exists. The
action of designing creates a movement to the
right along the graph, which means a decreasing
explicitness. Movement downwards instead is the
effect of détournement, as way of sidestepping
normal design practice. By creating deviations,
the mean relationships can be moved gradually,
creating a new graph with a lower slant. That is
the goal of this project.
Method
The main part of The Guardian on Thursday
25th of February 2010 was analysed in five
steps, explained in the box on the following
page. The questions addressed are: What are
the elements of the newspaper’s design, and
how can they be changed to reveal the way
they normally function?
The most interesting results of the analysis are presented here, with the areas ordered
from explicit to implicit.
69 The ad is meant to look like a crossword that is part of the paper, cf. Appendix 1.3.
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Steps of the analysis
1. An overview of the contents: number of news stories, photographs, promotional
items, advertisements, graphics etc., many of which are of course connected.
2. Grouping the contents into areas of newspaper design lifted from Garcia’s Contemporary Newspaper Design: typography, layout, photography, editorial graphic elements,
info graphics, and colour.
3. Adding to the analysis aspects of the following constants: advertisements, material
and format.
4. The areas from step 2 and 3 are scrutinised according to the content/constant and
explicit/implicit axes, looking for the mean relationship as well as any interesting
deviations relative to the area.
5. If an area has deviating elements, then how can they be exaggerated? If an area has
none, how can they be created? What ideological functions does that reveal?
What is actually depicted in the photographs
is of less concern here, instead the question is:
how is photography used?
The Guardian is printed in full colour,
but of course black and white photos are still
reproduced in greyscale. The effect of colour
photos compared to b/w photos is discussed
under Materiality. The issue has 48 photos,
out of which four show employed writers. The
biggest photograph is on the centre spread,
which is usually reserved for a blown-up “eyewitness” capture. Already we can see how
much this area of design overlaps with layout,
as merely mentioning size immediately brings
us to cropping and placement.
Layout is also involved when it comes to
types of images and where they are placed.
Different canons have developed over time for
news photography, sports, entertainment etc.
This becomes especially clear with the figurecut images of people that are always placed
above the nameplate, seemingly sticking out
from behind it (see Appendix 1.1), and in the
second half of the paper, where they are used
centred between columns, letting the body
text wrap around them. This makes them
more dynamic, while the connection to “softer
news” and entertainment makes them seem
less serious. It is remarkable that The Guardian place such photos above the nameplate
(the only part visible when the papers are in
the racks), as this means they are promoting
themselves as a more lightweight paper than
they are. These images and headlines there
are indeed often entry points for stories in the
supplements.
On a spread, photographs are also used as
entry points for the articles, or to give spreads
contrast by using photographs of different
sizes, spread out over the pages.70 The Guardian sometimes uses photographs that are
not connected to an article. These function
in much the same way as the centre eyewitness photo, and only have a short headline at
the top and a caption. This is an uncommon
use of photography, that you would not see in
Sydsvenskan for example. The cover photo of
the analysed Guardian issue, depicting the
Queen going through the underground barrier, is a good example (see Appendix 1.1). It
is also an example of the type of image that
usually goes on the cover: an iconic image or a
photo of an easily recogniseable person.
An interesting deviation that can occur
is when the photographic original (from an
analog or digital source) does not match up
to the size it needs to printed at to convey the
suitable weight. Sometimes pictures that are
grabbed from television or computer screens
have to be used. There is such a pixelated photo on a feature spread in the analysed issue
(see Appendix 1.14-15) that could be a video
capture or simply a radically cropped photo
taken from far away.
Such a deviation reveals how a newspaper
works together with photographers and to
what extent a newspaper rely on their photographers to get pictures of the day’s events
from both near and afar. When amateur photographs are used, for lack of a better alternative, it stressed the separation of people
into professional and non-professional photographers. Normally, not any person would
be allowed or privileged to take photos for a
70 Garcia, pp. 234-235.
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national newspaper. An amateur photo or a
less successful photo taken by an employee
also stands apart from the codified genres of
documentarism and so on, making us notice
how stylised these actually are.
Layout (and grid)
The function of layout is arguably to make
the news “fit” onto the pages, and as a further
step: to structure and order them, creating a
hierarchy. It is an important part of the design, sometimes even done before writing the
articles, and thus covers a large area in the
diagram (there is a wide variation in its explicitness as well as in its constancy).
The variation of layout is limited by a
grid, which is invisible but can be figured out
by measuring. In the diagram, you could say
that the grid is the edge delimiting the area
taken up by layout (see Figure 3.1), or even
the whole area surrounding it. This means
one cannot change the grid, since is it ‘is not
there’. The grid can only be made apparent
in the negative, through the layout. However,
changing the layout can destroy or exaggerate
the impression of a structured grid. Naturally,
the grid can also be replaced completely. Doing this can reveal the ideological function of
the grid: to inform the reader which items are
most important, whether there are connections to other items and ultimately which of
the innumerable events of the day are worth
writing about.
A more radical view of layout is to see it
as enveloping most of the other areas in the
diagram, since nearly all of them have a connection to layout. A deviation in another area
would then automatically imply a deviation in
layout.
The Guardian uses a ten column grid,
where the smallest vertical division is a line of
text, roughly 9 points high. The line spacing
is tight and the point size of the body text is
about 8 points. The most common organisation of a page is into five columns, i.e. each
column in an article spans two columns of the
grid (for schematics of grid and a typical front
page layout, see Figure 4). Single grid columns are used in a few places, mainly for promotional items, tables, thumbnails and statistics. In many places these spaces are created
due to the fixed size of ads (for a complete
account of available sizes see Appendix 6).
Only two articles take up a whole page, which
Nameplate
Headline
Photo
Headline
Article
Cover story
Headline
Article
Figure 4
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Promo panel
is the same number as full-page ads. The only
item bigger than that is the centrefold photo.
(Again, the connections to photography and
advertising are many.) There are however
three feature spreads, on which all the items
are about or connected to the same event.
One important deviation is again created
by the cut-out images above the nameplate on
the front page. These are not readily seen as
aligning to the columns and rather become
one with the nameplate. A closer look at these
was given under Photographs. Another notable item can be found on a feature spread (see
Appendix 1.10-11), where there is an item
that is halfway between graphic and body
text. The columns of text actually do align to
the grid, but span three grid columns instead
of two. The first text column goes across the
fold, so that the two margins add up to one
extra grid column. This is one of only three
occurrences (not counting the centre spread)
where an item goes across the fold.
In the feature spread on pages 14-15 mentioned earlier, there is an alignment mismatch
where the inverted box does not go the middle
of the gutter between the grid columns, but
only to the edge between gutter and column.
This means that the left edge of the column
does not align with anything. It looks like an
inadvertent layout effect, which could have
been remedied by making the panel a couple
of millimeters wider.
Here it might be interesting to go back to
Kress’ and van Leeuven’s study in which they
describe the older format of The Guardian
as being a typical vertically oriented paper.71
It retains this quality with the new format
which is indeed taller than a normal tabloid.
Compared to Sydsvenskan, it has fewer articles that cross the centrefold, fewer columns
on a page and almost never a headline beside
an article. The connections made through
layout are usually vertical. This contrasts
with the use of the tabloid format by many
actual tabloids, which is usually horizontal.
It is clear that The Guardian is distinguishing
itself from the tabloids proper, both through
choosing the Berliner format, the use of layout as well as the more traditional typography. Deviations in the layout would thus serve
to reveal this positioning on The Guardian’s
part.
Typography
The Guardian almost universally uses serif
type in the main section. It is difficult to see
at first, but it is actually the same typeface
in headlines as in captions as in body text:
Guardian Egyptian. It is remarkable that they
had an entirely new typeface commissioned,
but also that, instead of using the sans serif
(which the serif was just a step towards developing), they switched to serif for headlines.
This should be compared to Hillman’s design
from 1988, which at the time was among the
first to employ sans serif type. The new typeface now sends dual messages, one of uniqueness and a strong identity, the other of tradition updated to contemporary needs.
The reason that the same typeface works
well at so disparate sizes is that it was cut in
such a wide range of weights. There are eight
headline weights and four body weights, as
well an agate (tabular) version in 21 weights.
About the type collection, Commercial Type
say: “it exhibits a rational and clear disposition, lending a serious air to the text” and
“Guardian Egyptian Headline mixes stylish
Continental shapes with the no-nonsense
proportions of the British Egyptian”.72 There
are many trends in typographic choices, but
since The Guardian’s typefaces are unique it
is easier to realise their ideological function,
which is mainly one of style. By signifying
a meeting modernity and tradition, these
values are transplanted to the newspaper’s
brand. Changing or introducing new typefaces would quickly reveal the tight and consistent look that is the result of only using
one typeface. It would also reveal how little
typography actually has to do with readability
compared to identity. That The Guardian did
not think twice about paying for a new commission proves this point. The new typeface is
not measurably easier to read than their old
Miller, which you are reading now.
It is unusual to have a nameplate set in
lowercase like The Guardian’s, but it has become another important part of the paper’s
identity – yet another distinction made – and
let us not forget how natural it makes ‘theguardian.co.uk’ look. Possibly the only retained idea from the previous logo is the lack
of space between the words (now separated
71 Kress & van Leeuwen, pp. 209-212.
72 ​Guardian Collection brochure, http://commercialtype.com/typeface_images/guardian/Guardian-collection.pdf
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by tint instead of typeface), which of course
also reminds one of a URL. This separation
device is used to even better effect in headlines, which can thus be set in two parts but
can still read like a sentence (sometimes creating a pun).
Interestingly, Sydsvenskan have bought
and even commissioned new cuts of Guardian Sans. Apparently it spreads such an air of
modernity that even a newspaper on the other
side of the political spectrum can consider using it. Sydsvenskan works much more with
juxtaposing hairline and heavy weights in a
way that gives a less harmonious impression
than The Guardian however.
The result of their typeface being so regoniseable is that they can easily separate advertisements from the editorial matter, since it
would be most unlikely for another company
to use the same typeface. Also, it quickly discloses which ads have been co-created with
The Guardian, e.g. reader offers. With the
new serif, The Guardian prove that there is no
more to the typography than what you put in
it, providing it is an unobtrusive design.
Deviations from general use of type occurs mainly in the Comments & Debate section, which uses an ornamental ampersand as
well as decorative quote marks and pointers
on the page. Several items here are also given
more weight by using bolder type or being
separated with italics (see Appendix 1.31 &
1.34). On one page in the paper there is body
text set at a bigger point size. This page is the
only other page apart from the cover that features the nameplate. The articles here are not
attributed and on the page are also ‘Corrections and clarifications’ and an event from the
same day in 1935 (see Appendix 1.34). These
deviations all reveal how certain articles are
separated from the ‘hard news’ and presented
more in the style of magazine design, something that takes over completely when one
gets to the supplements. The strict and consistent use of type in the main section communicates seriousness and weight.
The smallest type in the paper is the agate
version, which is used in the financial section
for listing shares etc. and on the weather page.
Apart from the use of coloured type (covered
in the Materiality sub-chapter) there is no
more to say about peculiar use of type. Deviations do not normally occur because typography options are controlled by the software.
A remark should be made about the date
there should be no reason why a chart is more
ideologically repressive than any other aspect
of design.
I have myself elected to represent the
model my analysis has resulted in as a diagram. This is not merely an adoption of newspaper form, using diagrams is also a method
of visualising complicated relationships. That
is the common function of graphics in newspapers, and as we shall discover concerning
format, it is the function of graphics that has
more relevance than the graphics themselves,
which can assume virtually any appearance. If
the function of graphics is a handy way of explaining complex news stories, having many
graphics would signal a complex and intellectual paper. It would also be related to the
context, because a tabloid with many graphics could instead signal the opposite: that the
reader is not intelligent enough to understand
the story without an explanatory graph. There
is finally the simple fact that people are drawn
in by diagrams and charts, which thus function as efficient entry points.
Graphics
other words anything that is not type, a photo
or an ad. Traditional info graphics number
quite few in the issue, I count only three (not
including the weather forecast and indicators
on the financial pages); one is a map, one is a
diagram and one is a flowchart (see Appendix
1.3).
The most interesting graphic element
in the analysed issue is the previously mentioned (p. 24) half illustration, half article.
This would be a deviation had it not been
for the fact that it most probably is a knowing appropriation of the visual style normally
encountered in a tabloid (the feature is about
the ‘dirty tricks’ of the tabloids). In fact, this
is an example of just the sort of meta-design
that newspapers could do with more of. Design is here cleverly put to use in reinforcing the opinions aired in the news story. By
contrasting it with the normal form of The
Guardian, represented by the rest of the issue, the deduced meaning can only be that
The Guardian’s design is superior and stands
for a higher journalistic standard than that of
tabloids.
In general, this could be a useful type of
deviation to create. By letting the distant element become the visual forms and practices
of the tabloid press, it is possible to completely rebuild the The Guardian as a tabloid
signaling gossip and gory news. But since the
project is limited to using the existing contents of the main section it would require unjustifiable amounts of work and would be a
better suited strategy for a differently focused
project than mine. There are still elements of
this idea in the resulting prints, especially in
Print 1 (see p. 36).
Barnhurst writes extensively about the
history of the info graphic (or chart, as he
calls it) and its ideological connotation to the
military and other scientific institutions of
power.73 While this connection to positivism
or technological and commercial authority
can easily be made, that in itself is not reason enough to make it, at least not considering that info graphics are not nearly as common in newspapers as say, type. A traditional
Marxist analysis of newspaper design could
make several points about the importance of
charts, but from the point of view of Debord
Considered in this section are everything
from conventional information graphics to illustrations and editorial graphic elements, in
73 Barnhurst, pp. 76-88.
74 Carter, Meg & Gheerawo, Rama & Myerson, Jeremy et. al. “The Guardian” in Creativity Works 2006 [Annual collection of design case studies]. Published by: British Design & Art Direction, 2006.
http://www.dandad.org/inspiration/creativityworks/6/pdf/Guardian.pdf [accessed 2010-02-11]
of the newspaper however, which is nested in
the blue of the nameplate. It could be considered a convenient place to put necessary but
unimportant information. Where it sits, next
to the paper’s price (£1.00) it is easily glossed
over. Not giving the price prominence is reasonable, but why not the date? Given that the
date is stated at the top of every page and that
the most current issue is usually sitting in the
racks, it is not actually necessary. But here is
where the afterlife of newspapers manifests
itself in the design. Until now, the analysis
has been concerned with the intended functioning of design, but the design will remain
unchanged also after the intended function
has been filled and the newspaper has lost its
news value. What is the ideological function
of design under such circumstances?
When picking up a newspaper that is lying around, the first thing your eyes will be
searching for is the date. If the date is not today’s or yesterday’s you will likely lose interest
– who would want to read yesterday’s news?
But newspapers are also saved for other purposes, even if you simply need some fast fuel
to get the fire going. There is an invisible line
where an old newspaper becomes interesting
again, especially if it contains an article or
photo one has a personal connection to. This
importance is heightened by the material
frailty of the paper, more about which under
Materiality. I consider the size that the date
is given, in relation to its far-reaching meanings, to be remarkable, enough even to call it
a deviation.
Since an old newspaper clipping is not
read, but rather looked at like any other piece
of memorabilia (sometimes even framed), the
normal function of design is suspended. Ideological functions still remain however, the design helps to connect it to an era through its
style. While this study is concerned with the
current design of The Guardian, it must still
be recognised that specimens of this design
might remain in society for many years. Such
a temporal deviation would reveal the importance of design for stylistic aspects and the
brand of a newspaper, just as the look of the
1988 Guardian is still highly recogniseable.
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Advertisements
Although advertising is hardly mentioned in
Garcia’s newspaper design primer, it is undoubtably a vital aspect as it is completely separated from the other content. Simply by not
being mentioned, it automatically becomes
important, since that implies something the
newspaper designer has no control over and
rather something one has to design around.
It has already been concluded that ads are an
important factor for layout, and The Guardian’s creative director mentions how advertisers can even dictate such crucial matters as
the choice of format for a newspaper.74
Ads are a necessary evil to newspapers –
they finance the production to a large extent
(see Appendix 6 for The Guardian’s rates)
but creates unwanted visual competition.
Ads are often the most colourful and salient
elements on a spread, using large type and
enticing imagery to their advantage. Newspaper designers can only compete through
bigger headlines and powerful photography
(or restricting advertisers to greyscale, which
always makes for a cheaper ad). In a tabloid
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Chapter 2
it can sometimes require a second look to determine what is an ad and what is not. A daily
newspaper like The Guardian, which contains
considerably fewer ads than Sydsvenskan to
start with, adopts a strategy of separation
instead. The layout and placement of ads is
standardised, contrast is created through
their restrained use of type and ads are always surrounded by vertical and horizontal
rules. The Volkswagen ad on page 3 (Appendix 1.3) is an obvious deviation, where the
ad designers have adopted the same strategy
as a counter-move. It looks so close to a real
crossword that is requires a label stating it is
in fact an advertisement. Such labels are common in Sydsvenskan, which sometimes contain whole fake ‘supplements’. Deviations that
level out or reverse this separation is a convenient way to reveal the perhaps imaginary
ideological differentiation of ads and editorial
matter. After all the newspaper is as much of
a commodity as the advertised goods, trying
to attract new consumers, partly through an
appealing design. To put it bluntly one of the
functions of newspaper design is the same as
the function of ads, namely marketing.
One deviation unique to The Guardian
is the notably large number of ads from the
Guardian Media Group itself or its partnerships. These are similarly separated and
placed, but are set in Guardian typefaces. The
‘reader’s offers’ are easily identified by labels,
but promotional items from Guardian partnerships are considerably more subtle. They
can be viewed as opposites of the Volkswagen
ad: by adopting the look of an ad, they attract
the viewer to read a message that actually has
The Guardian as its sender. These ads feature
the otherwise rarely used typeface Guardian Sans, and it would be valuable to investigate how they are created and who profits
from them. An ironic extreme of this practice
would be a paper that only contains ads for
itself and could boost its own sales without
letting up space for other companies.
A further peculiarity of advertising, which
similarly sets it apart from editorial matter,
is the very nature of the ‘campaign’. An ad is
allowed to be repeated over several issues, or
even on the pages of one and the same issue.
While a news story cannot be repeated, only
elaborated on, the ad campaign builds up recognition through repetition. The only other
element that has this character is the nameplate. By changing the nameplate a deviation
which reveals that character can be orchestrated.
the paper: on the kitchen table, on the bus,
whether it fits in a briefcase or handbag etc.
Format
Like format, the materials newspapers are
printed on (and with) are not mentioned in
the literature. Contained in the very word
newsprint is the taken-for-granted notion
that all newspapers use the same paper. The
one instance that stands out is the use of
pink-hued stock that has become internationally synonymous with financial news. It is difficult to find a reason for this use, but it does
make one realise that normal newsprint is all
but inconspicuous.
Newsprint is grey, it has serrated top and
bottom edges as well as holes left by the printing press. Old newspapers become brown
(something quite remarkable in itself, what
if your new tv set suddenly changed colour?)
fresh newspapers have the smell of ink, which
in turn has a tendency to rub off. Because the
ink is a material as well. Different newspapers
print on different stock, although the differences are mostly negligible. The paper must
be cheap and light and it is normally made of
recycled paper. Only newspapers who wish
to distinguish themselves as having a higher
standard could justify using higher quality
paper.
Just how unique newsprint is struck me
while I was looking into the possibility of buying some for the project. It turned out newsprint is not sold in any stores in Sweden, but
manufactured and distributed directly to the
national and local newspapers, who recycle all
spillage. I realised I had never actually seen
The actual size of a newspaper is not as important as the effects of the size. A newspaper
could hypothetically be any size, but it has
become standardised to variations of broadsheet or tabloid. That The Guardian changed
format depended as much on the trend of
switching from broadsheet to tabloid, started in England by The Independent in 2003,
as a design necessity.75 The conscious design
choice instead consisted of differentiating
themselves by choosing a tabloid format that
was unique in Britain. The tall Berliner format was perfect for The Guardian, since it
enabled them to keep their vertically oriented
layout and connected them to similar newspapers on the continent.
How then does format work in conjunction with the design? The format is the natural limit of layout and of how the reader takes
in the news. The Guardian is folded in half
which accentuates the upper half of the page,
especially the front page. This is why the area
above the nameplate is important, being the
first thing you see. The Guardian is not stapled together which means the corresponding
pages of a spread sometimes drift apart. Placing images across the middle can thus cause
a gap in the image, which could explain why
this is rarely done in The Guardian, while being more common in the stapled Sydsvenskan.
A format-related deviation results from
this absence of staples. Because they do not
use staples, The Guardian can print issues
that do not have a even number of sheets (the
number of pages being a multiple of 4). A 38page issue for example, will have a single page
somewhere, which will slip out if the reader is
not careful. Such a typical deviation immediately makes the viewer consider the format
in an active way. These single sheets are an
important reference point for the front page
redesigns that have been printed, which are
of course also single. Such deviations of format reveal the ideological function of format,
which is to limit where and how one can read
75 ​Ibid.
Materiality
newsprint that has not been printed. Often no
distinction is made between ‘newsprint’ and
‘newspaper’ either, the type and images have
become inseparable from the paper, forming a visual texture. That is also an effect of
the ink sinking into the fibers of the paper.
An effective deviation could thus be created
by somehow separating the printed surface
from the underlying surface. Sometimes the
print on the opposite side of the page shows
through, especially when holding up a single
page, and this adds to the impression of a texture. Such deviations would reveal how important the material is for quickly telling the
viewer that they are looking at a newspaper,
but also how much economical factors control the choice of material. Having worked as
a newspaper deliverer I know that wages are
sometimes calculated from the weight of the
delivered papers.
Rather than discussing colour use separately, it is included here as an aspect of materiality, so as to stress the fact that newspapers
normally use only four colours or inks when
printing. That we see endlessly varying hues
is the optical illusion created by overlaid raster dots in cyan, magenta, yellow and black.
It is notable that The Guardian make
a point of being the first British daily to be
printed in ‘full colour’.76 Full colour does not
mean that there is no black in the paper, but
if black is a colour too then would a monochrome black and white paper not be full colour as well? Full colour merely means that
each sheet is given a CMYK print, where previously every second sheet or more had been
printed with black only. As mentioned earlier,
there are still monochrome photos and ads in
Strategies for détournement
• Moving items from anywhere in the main section. Can create deviations in typography, photography, advertisements, graphics and use of format.
• Moving items from anywhere in the main section, without aligning them to the grid.
Can create deviations in typography, photography, advertisements, graphics, use of
format and layout.
• Changing the use of colour. Can create deviations in the use of typography, photography, advertisements, graphics, format and colour.
• Changing the paper and ink. Can create deviations in the materiality, as well as in the
way all other aspects of the design are seen.
• Distorting the ephemerality of the newspaper. Can create deviations in materiality and
in how the paper is used. This is of great importance for giving all the redesigns a lasting effect beyond the daily publication.
76 ​Ibid.
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the paper; the ads because they are sold at a
cheaper rate; the photos because the originals
have been taken with black and white film. A
further twist is added by the fact that CMYK,
being an additive colour mixing, can turn out
as black even if no black ink is used, if the
three other inks are printed over each other.
Deviations in the colour occur if there is a
misregistration during printing, causing one
or more colours to become visible on their
own instead of blending in. This visualises the
printing process in an undesired way, revealing the function of photo-realistic printing
which is to create credibility. Deviations in
the use of colour are also possible, although
colour is normally applied very consistently,
using two tints of each colour to create connections. The use of black and white photographs can create noticeable deviations
however, as they signal a seriousness and age
that is not always appropriate to an article,
especially if there is a monochrome ad on the
same spread. Because the monochrome ads
signal unreliability instead (one cannot see
the colours of the product one is expected to
buy), together they could result in a ambiguous impression.
Conclusions
Since a deviation in one area of design, according to the model (Figure 3.1), usually
falls outside of the other areas of design as
well, that would mean such an element is
no longer unique to a certain area. Something originating as a deviation of format
might create as strong a distortion of the use
of advertisements. The deviation might also
be such that it falls outside of its originating
area, but within the accepted variation of another area. Changing an aspect of format for
example, might not break with the common
use of typography. But in most cases, creating
a deviation in one area of design also affects
how other areas function, because they are
so closely connected. This can be visualised
as one deviation sparking new deviations in
other areas, or as one deviation (now floating
freely in the undefined space) relating to several or all areas of design simultaneously.
It would seem pointless then, to group
détournement strategies according to the
accepted areas of design. When choosing
among the many ideas that have suggested
themselves, I have instead opted for actions
that create deviations relating to several areas, or if you prefer, a cluster of connected
deviations.
I found that moving items would create
the most versatile deviations, always affecting
several areas and naturally including those
that involve moveable elements, but also layout. By moving items and breaking the grid
whilst so doing, one can also distort the function of format.
The analysis shows that the more implicit
elements (usually the more constant ones too)
bear greater potential for being distorted. It
should then be logical that also the function
of material (including colours) must be manipulated. It is unaffected by moving items,
but changing the paper and colours will on
the other hand change how we perceive all of
the other areas including material.
Four strategies have now been found:
moving items following the grid, moving
items but breaking the grid, changing the material, and changing the use of colour. For the
fifth strategy I decided to return to the most
important typographic elements, which are
also the most constant. I consider the date to
be a gateway into the other context of a newspaper, that of memorabilia and not news. By
creating a distortion in the ephemeral nature of the design the project is laid bare to
this wider context. What use can a redesign
today fill in a few years time one must ask?
Any prints I were to make now using newsprint, would all be subjected to the decay and
yellowing of the paper. The redesign would
therefore not be successful according to the
same criteria several years on. But through
letting one of the redesigns comment on this
fact, it could even be used to my advantage.
By erasing the date the simple action of finding it is made impossible.
With these five strategies I aim to cover as
many of the different design areas as possible,
and the most important points made in this
chapter. In the following chapter the resulting prints are described as closely as the limited space allows. It should not be seen as an
explanation of all the new meanings that are
created, because these are self-evident from
looking at the prints.
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Chapter 3
The Guardian redesigned
Two important steps in-between which the
implementation of détournement is sandwiched, remain to decide upon, and the fact
that these are interrelated is obvious.
First, what method do I use to capture
the appearance of the existing front pages?
Second, in what technique should they be reproduced? For example, should I photograph
them, retouch the negatives and make full
scale prints, like Sarah Charlesworth did? I
already have two criteria that derive from the
function of détournement:
• There is the notion of democracy: that
anyone anywhere in the world should be
able to duplicate and repeat my work. It is
vital that the inspiration to do this is conveyed by the redesigns.
• At the same time it must to be seen in the
light of differing target audiences. The
redesigns of newspapers that I want to
inspire should each be targeted to that
paper’s readership. The choice of printing technique, distribution and print run
must thus also be tailored after the newspaper in question.
Depending on one’s optimism about the
facilities in third world countries, the first criteria could be understood as the best method
being either a manual ‘paste-up’ using a photocopier, scissors and glue (requires no computer or design software); or photographing
with a digital camera, manipulating the photos on a public computer and emailing them
to the nearest digital printshop.
Seen in the light of the second criteria, a
simple photocopy would not have much of a
visual impact and there would be no options
for paper choice or colour printing, two things
that I wish to manipulate. With a digital print
on newsprint you could get a look that is quite
close to the original, but you simultaneously
run the risk of making it look too cheap – especially since I am sending the redesigns to
The Guardian office rather than replacing
the real papers at newsagents. But the digi-
tal workflow also entails a greater freedom
in choosing how to capture the original front
page, as long as it ends up as an image on a
computer: through scanning, photographing
or downloading PDFs from the Guardian web
site.
A regular four-colour CMYK digital print
would still not provide the versatility required
however. Digital printing is a streamlined
business that prefers to handle every print job
the same, and it is generally more expensive
to add a custom paper or coloured inks (from
the Pantone scale, which some digital printers may not even do) to a print. Everything is
standardised, which is the case also for newspapers, but I wish to add the clichéd ‘human
touch’ so as to reinforce the uniqueness of the
prints. Since I am sending the prints to The
Guardian by post I am also inhibited by postage costs, and it is self-evident I cannot send
out 100 copies to 100 different people.
I have decided to print the redesigns using the technique of screenprinting, which
is several decades older than digital printing. It is the technique that fits both criteria
most closely. For a project such as this it signals an artistic spirit, since although the most
common use of screenprinting has been for
billboards, packaging and other commercial
products, this is exactly why artists took notice of and appropriated the technique in the
1950’s and 60’s.
Another important factor in the decision
was that (3)Screen in Malmö offered to help
me with both the printing and the creation of
original files free of charge. (3)Screen started under the name Reklamteknik about 40
years ago, is now among the most established
screenprinters in Sweden, and they have a
history of working with artist’s prints.77 They
printed a set of Andy Warhol Brillo-boxes for
an exhibition in 1990, boxes that have recently
caused a scandal in the art world after Swedish art magnate Pontus Hultén sold them as
authentic 1968 works.78
77 Reklamteknik translates as ‘Advertising technology’.
78 ​ARTnews call it ‘The Brillo-Box Scandal’ in their November 2009 issue. http://www.artnews.com/issues/article.
asp?art_id=2772. Swedish tabloid Expressen uncovered the story in 2007 (http://www.expressen.se/Nyheter/
1.701023/warhol-mysteriet-med-svenska-miljonboxar) and it has now made its way onto Wikipedia even (http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol_Art_Authentication_Board)
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Chapter 3
Why screenprint?
• It contrasts with the normal newspaper (in its durability, its commercial value and the
prevalence of the printing technique).
• A visual impact (which will make the target audience take notice).
• Democratic (in the sense that it is analog, can be practised manually, and has traditionally been used for smaller print runs).
• Valuable associations (to advertising and billboards, and hence also to artist’s prints,
political posters etc).
• Flexible (open technology, adjustable and not least flexible in the wide array of options when it comes to materials and colours).
• Variations in the prints (when they occur in this case, they emphasise the ‘print of a
print’ character of the work.
The two main practical advantages of using screenprinting are its flexibility and its
transparency. It is flexible because it is possible to print on most flat materials and the
range of available inks is wide. The printed
colours are richer and last longer than with
an offset or digital print, and colours can be
printed with a thickness that enables you to
print white or other light colours on a black
surface, which can never be achieved in offset or digital print. It is transparent since
the printing press is literally open and you
can see and adjust what is happening at all
times. Furthermore, stock and inks are easily
exchanged while printing, the stencil can be
masked and retouched and the machine itself
has an array of adjustable parts – all things
that would prove valuable for this project,
since a redesign cannot be evaluated until
it has been printed. Were they to be printed
digitally there would be no turning back.
The (3)Screen printing presses themselves are mechanical and work without being
connected to a mainframe or any other digital system. Simpler presses can be operated
manually, without electricity. This was one of
the reasons French political activists used the
technique to print posters in the 1960’s (some
of them carrying situationist slogans). In the
event of a full-blown revolution and a power
cut occurred, the print studios would still carry on undeterred.79
Sceenprinting usually results in slight
variations in the print, to a lesser degree when
printed in such a professional fashion by experienced personnel, but more so if one purchases one’s own tools (available from most
artists’ supply stores) and prints at home.
Variations do occur in these prints too as we
shall soon see, but it merely strengthens the
aura of the print, as a cloned Walter Benjamin would have put it.
(3)Screen agreed to print the redesigns in
editions of 50, which goes well with the idea
of creating a contrast with the original paper:
instead of making thousands of digital prints,
50 exclusive prints are made. In this sense the
choice of printing technique can be considered a détournement in itself. Using screenprinting proves an important point: that under the current circumstances an individual is
as a matter of fact unable to make his or her
own news like the newspaper makes news.
Having thus resolved the problem of printing technique and print run, that also dictated
how I was to rework the original front pages.
Because the film rip machine (that produces
the film from which the stencil is developed)
gets its input from a computer, a digital original is required. Furthermore, because the rip
rasterises the image anew, it is crucial that the
resolution of the original file is as high as possible, especially when working from an image
that is already rasterised such as a newspaper.
This is to get fine detail like the body text to be
readable in the print. To achieve that kind of
resolution all five Guardian front pages were
captured using a digital scanner, which conveniently leads us into the working process.
Process
The creation of the prints can be divided into
three natural stages, which were carried out
at three different ‘stations’ at the printing
company.
79 Lincoln Cushing, “Meshed Histories: The Influence of Screen Printing on Social Movements” in Voice: AIGA Journal of Design [online journal], May 26, 2009, Copyright: AIGA.
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/meshed-histories-the-influence-of-screen-printing-on-social-movements [accessed 2010-02-16, including reader comments]
32|76
1. Creating the original file for each print
and ripping it onto film.
2. Exposing and developing the stencils.
3. Printing and post-printing.
1. Each front page is scanned in 24-bit colour at a resolution of 1,200 dpi using an A3
scanner, and saved as TIF files with no compression. The newspaper is taller than the
A3 format so the part above the nameplate is
scanned separately and then merged with the
rest in Adobe Photoshop CS4. Both the Epson scanner software and Photoshop is used
to edit the scan to get the best possible contrast. It is then converted to black & white to
keep the tones consistent, and then converted
to greyscale.
The contrast has to be increased enough
to white out the grey of the newsprint and
make the remaining text as close to solid
black as possible. Otherwise it would print as
a raster on the film. This requires some work,
especially when material from other sources
in the newspaper is used to replace existing
elements.
The finished greyscale TIFs were then
placed in an EPS file that the film rip software
could read. When making a CMYK screenprint the file has to be colour separated and
each colour printed as black on a separate
film. This is because the colours are printed in
sequence, with the raster at different angles.
The film ripper ‘rips’ the EPS so that all
tints lighter than solid black become rasterised. The density of the raster can be set to
different predetermined values (65 lines were
used for these prints to get the best detail) or
a custom value. Also printed on the film are
crop marks, and registration marks if more
than one colour is used. All five films printed
were approved by myself and staff and none
had to be amended and ripped again. For fullpage reproductions of the original TIF files,
cf. Appendix 3.
2. The density of the raster is also chosen to match the density of the mesh in the
screens used. For all five prints the screens
with the finest available mesh are used.
(3)Screen have three standard methods of
creating the stencils. The simplest one, called
a direct stencil, means exposing the film directly onto the mesh, which is prepared with
photosensitive emulsion. The stencil is then
developed, which hardens the exposed parts
and the remaining emulsion is washed out
with water.
The method that gives the best detail
however, is when the ripped image is exposed
on a photographic film, which is then developed separately and transferred to the mesh,
leaving a thin solid layer on the inside of the
stencil (the side from which the ink is pushed
through). That is the method used for these
prints but there is also a third method, which
is a hybrid of the two mentioned. Finally, the
stencil is left to dry.
3. The prints are made using one of the
smaller printing presses at (3)Screen so the
material can fed and removed manually. The
stencil is mounted into the press, an appropriate squeegee is chosen and ink is poured along
the edge of the stencil. I use several different
inks and materials all supplied by (3)Screen,
and I was able to pick and choose among their
stocks. Virtually any colour can be used since
it is mixed by the printers themselves, usually
to match a certain Pantone hue. The prints
are put on a drying rack and moved into a
drying chamber if necessary. The stencils
are then washed out and the ripped film archived, to avoid repeating the pre-press work
if new order is made. Screens can be saved by
putting two different stencils in one and the
same screen. This is done for two print that
are going on the same paper but using different colours. When printing, the other stencil
is simply masked off with paper and tape.
When the ink has dried the prints are cut
according to the crop marks. All prints were
made on 50 x 70 cm sheets, which means two
front pages could be fit onto every sheet. The
processed prints have the exact same measurements as the original newspaper. See
Figure 5 on the next spread for some photos
from the printing process.
Specifications
Five different prints have been made, each in
an edition of 50, three out of which are printed
on newsprint. Newsprint is harder to get hold
of in Sweden than one would imagine and
only be ordered in bulk quantities. By a stroke
of luck the printing company acquired some
leftover newsprint from Sydsvenskan’s recycling plant. They was uncertain as to whether
it was possible to print on it, because the material needs to be fixed to the printing press
using vacuum, and the vacuum was believed
to be to strong for the thin newsprint. Mikeal
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5.1
left
5.3
left
5.2
left
5.4
right
5.5
below
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Figure 5
The printing process: 1) film ripping 2) exposure 3) developing
4) creating the stencil 5) stencil mounted in the printing press.
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Chapter 3
Anderssson who made the prints claims he
has never printed on anything so frail before.
Since one print was going to be a manipulation of colour use, I decided to let the other
ones be greyscale so as to remove any doubt
concerning what was being manipulated. It
also meant that each print only needed to go
through the press once, since just one colour
was being used. (The Lulu version of this thesis is printed in black and white for economical reasons, but to clarify, the third print reproduced here is actually in colour.)
The first two prints involved moving elements around, including placing elements
not originally on the front page onto the front
page. To see all the détourned elements in
their original context on the pages, go to Appendix 2.
For the last three prints I also present a
small reproduction of the original file, to
make the process simpler to understand. The
silver print looks negative because the colour
is lighter than its background, but as you can
see the original file is positive. The silver ink
was chosen both for its tangible materiality –
it contains silver powder – and for its luxuri-
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Print 1
Print 2
Below left, the original page below.
Below with the original page below right.
Size: 47 x 31.5 cm.
Size: 47 x 31.5 cm.
Material: Newsprint.
Material: Newsprint.
Ink: ProStar OS (black).
Ink: ProStar OS (black).
Strategy: Elements moved, in accordance
with the grid.
Strategy: Elements moved, breaking the
grid.
Deviations created: Typography, layout,
advertising, photography, format, graphics.
Deviations created: Typography, layout,
advertising, photography, format.
Variations in the print: towards the end
of the run the face of the toddler received
a menacing blob.
Production cost: 47.50 SEK each.
Variations in the print: most prints have
darker dots in the black areas, left by the
suction of the vacuum holes.
Production cost: 47.50 SEK each.
ous connotations. It is especially important
to see the original of the fifth and final print,
since it was given a different treatment. The
creases and texture of the original front page
have been retained in the print. (The issue
scanned for this print is the analysed issue,
which by then had become rather well-worn.)
As mentioned earlier, bigger reproductions of
all original files are available in Appendix 3.
One effect that is regrettably lost here –
even in the full colour version – is the surface of the fifth print. The transparent plastic
is printed on both sides, but one side is shiny
and the other matte. This makes the ink blend
into the surface on the matte side, but on the
shiny side the ink has dulled the plastic. The
print on that side is therefore easier to read
when held at an angle. Other effects occur
when it is held over varying backgrounds. In
the photograph used here, it is placed in front
of a bright window.
In this final print, the ephemeral nature
of the newspaper has been exaggerated, with
the rather thick and heavy plastic contrasting
with the flimsiness of newsprint while simultaneously exaggerating its thin and transpar-
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Chapter 3
Print 3
Print 4
Below, the original page below right, with
the original file to the right.
Below, the original page below right, with
the original file to the right.
Size: 47 x 31.5 cm.
Size: 47 x 31.5 cm.
Material: Newsprint.
Material: black Kaskad Broschyr 225 gr.
Ink: Pure cyan.
Ink: Color Star CS Silver.
Strategy: Colour use manipulated.
Strategy: Materiality manipulated.
Deviations created: Colour use, graphics,
layout, typography (colour).
Deviations created: Colour use, material
(paper and ink).
Variations in the print: most prints have
darker dots in the blue areas, left by the
suction of the vacuum holes.
Variations in the print: all prints have
two specks of black in silver, caused by a
splash of masking fluid when the mesh
surrounding the print was masked out.
Production cost: 47.50 SEK each.
Production cost: 47.50 SEK each.
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Chapter 3
ent quality. The date was physically erased, by
rubbing out part of the stencil with a cotton
bud and some water.
The total cost of printing these editions
would have been 10,100 SEK (12,625 including VAT) according the calculations made by
(3)Screen.
Print 5
Below, the original page below right, with
the original file to the right.
Size: 47 x 31.5 cm.
Material: Clear transparent PVC
0,30 mm (printed on both sides).
Presentation
The reversed subscription started on May
12th, when one copy of each of Print 4 was
sent to The Guardian’s editor Alan Rusbridger, the creative director Mark Porter, and the
art director of g2. The original intention was
to send the third copy to Richard Turley because of his visual experiments as art director
of g2, but at the last minute I found out that
he had left this position. The third copy was
thus simply addressed ‘g2 art director’.
The prints were sent a few days apart,
folded in half like the real Guardian and put
into white padded envelopes. They were sent
in the order 4, 1, 2, 3, 5, because the silver print
has most visual power. All but the first batch
have my return address on the back. With the
second batch a small card (see Figure 6.1)
reading “Thank you for you subscription” and
an email address was included. With the final
print a similar card was included but this time
with “To renew your subscription...” and a link
to Lulu.com where this thesis is available for
purchase. The cards are printed with a lowend black and white laser printer to make
them look plain and homemade.
The cost of sending all 15 prints (including the cost for envelopes) comes to over 800
SEK, so it would ironically be cheaper to fly to
Ink: PY (black)
Strategy: Ephemerality manipulated.
Deviations created: Material, typography,
(date erased), newspaper uses.
Production cost: 62.50 SEK each.
London and hand them over in person. At the
time of writing no resulting communication
has been received.
The other venue for presenting the project is the exhibition Spektrum at Form/Design Center in Malmö, Sweden. This is a requirement for all students and the individual
displays are marked according to the course
guidelines, available from Malmö University.
The degree show is shared with students from
three other institutions and three more departments at Malmö University.
The exhibition is a tradition that remains
from an older variant of my degree, which
was professional rather than a bachelor, and
where the final project was practical instead
of research-based. The problem is thus communicating the theoretical side of the project,
by only showing the design work. To convey
the purpose and aims of the project, the prints
are displayed in a fashion that is infused with
the spirit of détournement. Just like the familiar element of the détournements have
been kept as close to the originals as possible,
the encounter with the prints must have the
credibility of a normal meeting with newspapers. How can a front page be made to be seen
as a real newspaper?
Five copies of each print are folded in half
in placed in simple, white cardboard magazine-holders. This will give the impression
that there are many copies of each print, or
that there is more than just a front page. Since
nobody from the target audience will get to
the exhibition, I also include the full main
sections of each issue of The Guardian. These
are coupled with the redesigns and placed in
the same magazine-holder. This is to swiftly
Figure 6.1-2
With Print 1 (6.1) and 5 (6.2) a small card was also put inside the envelope.
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41|76
make the viewer notice all the aspects that
are the same in the original and the redesign,
most notably the format.
The prints are accompanied by an informative sign, the design of which is uniform
for all the exhibited projects from the department (the layout and full text can be seen in
Appendix 4). There is also a display copy of
the thesis in case anyone wants to know more,
and directions for how to purchase a copy.
Unbeknownst to the viewer (including the person who will be marking the displays) there are several more prints scattered
throughout Form/Design Center, especially
in the café where the walls are lined with
magazines that you can flick through and buy
if you are so inclined. This is to bypass the effect of the prints being seen as exhibited material, which a newspaper of course rarely is.
Ultimately, the design of this thesis is another aspect of how the project is presented.
The thesis is designed to create a meeting of
newspaper form with academic content, as
one final détournement. Typographically, it
resembles the 1988 Guardian design, with the
use of Miller for body text and Helvetica for
headings and captions. The text is deliberately set tightly, with narrow column widths and
sparse leading (9/1o pt). Like a newspaper, it
has been designed as spreads, taking into account the symmetry and visual weight of elements on the left and the right. Figures and
tinted boxes help to create a more dynamic
look.
The display copies that are made for the
exhibition and for marking and archiving by
the University are printed on the remainder
of the newsprint used for the screenprints,
on a color laser printer. I have printed, folded and stapled them myself, using cropped
leftover one-sided versions of Print 5, which
is the transparent plastic print. This makes
each cover unique (depending on the angle
the cover is cropped at) and gives the book a
handmade finish. If you are able to see that it
is not printed professionally, then all the better.
A digital PDF version, also in colour, but
lacking the wraparound cover is also available
through Malmö University’s MEUP database,
which is open to the public. This is where all
theses and reports by students and staff are
published. That publication is mandatory,
but it is difficult to find unless given a direct
URL link, and people who do not own com-
puters or would simply prefer a physical book
should be granted their wish as well. Since I
cannot print books to order and since my applications for grants to finance a decent print
run have been unsuccessful, I have instead
published the book through the American
print-on-demand service Lulu. At lulu.com
anyone can publish a Microsoft Word or PDF
document and make a number of choices regarding format, binding, colour, paper etc.
You even get an ISBN number assigned free
of charge and you can then present your finished book through a personal digital storefront. Here customers can preview the book
and order a copy for a relatively low price. The
book should also turn up in Amazon searches.
To make the book as cheap as possible
I opted for a black and white print (which
means some readers will see all images in
greyscale). Full colour would have meant a
price of around 25 USD per copy, instead of
6 USD, and the full colour version is available
online already. The format is called Royal,
and is the closest match to the relative dimensions of a Berliner. The stock is Lulu’s standard paper and the book is perfect-bound,
like a normal paperback. Unable to have a
transparent plastic cover, I have instead used
an inverted section of the original TIF for
Print 1. After having made all these choices,
the price for a single copy of the book landed
at roughly three times the price of a copy of
The Guardian.
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Chapter 4
Conclusions and summary
This study has examined how the design of
popular newspapers can be détourned to reveal its function in contemporary society and
the dissemination of information. With a
background in the theories of the situationists and Guy Debord, an existing strategy for
resistance against ideological complacency
has been lifted into the modern age and put
to use in a redesign of British national daily
The Guardian.
The redesign exemplifies five strategies
for détournement that have been determined
after completing an ideological analysis of the
main section of one issue of the paper. What
the strategies have in common is the combination of two visual messages: the familiar
form of The Guardian on any given day, and
a deviating use of typography, layout, images,
material etc. These familiar and distant elements combine to create a détournement, or
a message containing its own critique. No
graphic or textual material not already in the
redesigned issues have been added, to prevent
misrecognition and to emphasise that the
question at hand is concerned with form, not
content. That the form affects the reading of
the content is what they intend to show.
The five strategies are implemented one
by one in a series of screenprints, which is the
printing technique found most suitable to the
aims of the project. While embodying several
democratic qualities, screenprinting also results in desirable contrasts with normal newspaper printing, which will support the communication with the target audience, which is
the Guardian’s staff in the first instance.
Copies of the five prints have been sent to
key executives at their London office and are
also exhibited locally in Malmö, Sweden. The
design and publication of the thesis itself is
also an important part of the project because
the thesis is the main means of communication with design scholars and working designers. To inspire further action is the secondary
aim of the project. This can take the form of
design research or new détournements and
redesigns carried out by designers as well as
non-designers. Eventually, such a practice
can lead to a more mutual relationship between users and producers of mass media.
Implications of research
During the analysis a model took shape (Figure 3.1-2), which shows how the relationship between the explicitness of design elements and their constancy can be visualised.
The model has been useful for comparing
the results of my analysis with relationships
that seem to be taken for granted within the
newspaper business. In a diagram, actual
design elements can be measured against
the belief that a successful design should go
unnoticed.
The action of designing can in the diagram be shown as movement in one direction,
while the détournements undertaken as part
of this project are represented as sidestepping
this movement. By creating deviations of the
accepted areas of design, how design elements
are plotted in the diagram can over time be
changed. The most important implications
of the model is that dividing newspaper design into functional areas is not as justifiable
as it would seem, and that design elements
or design areas that are more implicit have a
greater potential for being exaggerated by deviations than the more explicit ones.
Further research will have to be conducted
to determine how accurate this model is and
if design elements can be empirically measured so that the axes can be assigned some
kind of scale, which would make comparisons
more reliable.
Evaluations
Since no return communication has been received from the target audience, there is at
this point no opportunity to evaluate the effect of the détournements.
While creating the redesigns I have made
my own evaluations of how well the different
strategies have worked. I found that the prints
in which little or no content had been manipulated, but instead the colours and paper had
been changed, turned out to be the most effective. As in previous studies, the influence
of iconic imagery or text has had a tendency
to distract from the formal qualities, which
became apparent with Print 1. Several people
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who have seen it have been more concerned
with who the person in the photograph is,
than with what possible meaning the photograph fills in that context. But it also had
another, more interesting effect: changing
the headlines and photographs highlighted
the connections that are made through layout,
and the viewer tends to connect the manipulated elements in a way that still make sense.
The prints in which colour and inks have
been replaced are also the ones that are best
suited for the screenprinting technique and
that best take advantage of its positive qualities. (3)Screen have expressed their satisfaction with the prints, especially since they in a
couple of cases have gone beyond what they
thought was technically possible.
The evaluation that needs to be done here
is however more to do with the success of the
project in relation to its aims and objectives
than its real-world effects. The prints successfully show how détournement can be implemented, and the choice of distant elements
are motivated by the analysis carried out. Any
poorly made choices are due to shortcomings
of the analysis, of which the main one is the
limited empirical material. An analysis of several issues of The Guardian would have minimised errors that result from peculiarities of
the one issue that has been analysed. Alternatively, one issue of The Guardian could have
been cross-analysed with one issue of Sydsvenskan, which would have eliminated design
practices that are unique to The Guardian
and would perhaps uprooted more universal
practices that I might have turned a blind eye
towards.
The conclusion of the thesis is that the
ideological function of the graphic design of a
contemporary, popular newspaper can be revealed by a détournement, where the familiar
elements are current design practices and the
distant elements are deviations in the use of
design elements. The deviations must reveal
ideological functions of the design, or the risk
merely becoming gimmicks or parodies. The
most successful détournement is one in which
the distortions concern the more constant elements of the design, which are thus made
more explicit than they normally are.
The redesigns created show how such deviations can be created, using five different
kinds of actions, and resulting in communication containing its own critique. Continually
repeated, détournements like this can result
in a changed relationship between design elements and their explicitness, and thus the established design codes.
Recommendations for further research
Many unexplored avenues of research remain.
A more detailed analysis of the different elements of design is required, but also a larger
and wider empirical matter. It would be interesting to compare a traditional tabloid with a
traditional broadsheet for example.
Other perspectives, based on different
theoretical frameworks are also needed. An
option considered for this project but soon
abandoned, was to start the analytical work
from the other end: trying out ideas on test
runs of a larger number of variations, and as
a second step evaluating these in relation to
theories of communication and ideology. Instead of asking ‘how’ the aim of such a project
could be pose a ‘what if ’ question.
Another shortcoming of the project is the
considerable geographic distance between
Malmö and London. A more effective communication might be achieved by redesigning
a local paper and receiving continuous feedback during the course of the project. This
method would enable a better familiarity with
the object of study.
It would also make insight into current
working conditions and methods more convenient. How the newspaper is designed in
the actual offices and the actual design and
layout software has been something of a blind
spot in this project, since it would have required a different kind of research completely. A study carried out from that angle would
prioritise other aspects and the results would
be interesting to compare with mine. Using
the approach I did, I found some design aspects impossible to evaluate without knowing
to what degree they are humanly controlled,
or programmed into design software.
In general, studies of news media need to
show better understanding of design aspects,
especially those which lie beyond layout. But
most of all newspapers must be more forthcoming with information about and justifications of their design. Being forced to work
along these lines, newspaper designers would
be encouraged to think twice about the choices they make.
44|76
List of figures
Figure 1
Reproduction of parts of the photographic
work April 21, 1978 (included in the series
Modern History). Sarah Charlesworth, 1978.
Figure 2
Cover of Le retour de la colonne Durutti by
André Bertrand, 1966.
Figure 3
Diagrams explaining the model of newspaper
design that the analysis has results in.
Figure 4
The Guardian’s grid and a typical front page
layout.
Figure 5
Documentation of the printing process. Photo: Krister Bladh.
Figure 6
Materials sent as the reversed subscription.
Photo: Krister Bladh.
45|76
References
AIGA. http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/
meshed-histories-the-influence-of-screenprinting-on-social-movements [accessed
2010-02-16, including reader comments].
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Baudrillard, Jean. “Simulacra and Simulations” in Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings (Mark Poster ed.). Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1988, pp. 166-184.
Debord, Guy. The Society of the Spectacle
[translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith,
originally published as La société du spectacle
in 1967]. New York: Zone Books, 1994.
Berry, John D. (ed.). Contemporary Newspaper Design. Shaping the News in the Digital Age: Typography & Image on Modern
Newsprint. West New York, NJ: Mark Batty
Publisher, 2004.
The Bruhn Family. “Portfolio: Sydsvenskan”
[web page and slides]. Copyright: The Bruhn
Family 1992-2006. http://www.bruhnfamily.
com/portfolio/sydsvenskan.asp [accessed
on 2010-03-01].
Burgoyne, Patrick. “Guardian Gives Shape
to Obama’s Words” on Creative Review: CR
Blog [the journal’s weblog], posted January
19, 2009. http://www.creativereview.co.uk/
cr-blog/2009/january/guardian-gives-shapeto-obamas-words [accessed 2010-02-16
including reader comments].
Carter, Meg & Gheerawo, Rama & Myerson,
Jeremy et. al. “The Guardian” in Creativity
Works 2006 [Annual collection of design
case studies]. Published by: British Design
& Art Direction, 2006. http://www.dandad.
org/inspiration/creativityworks/6/pdf/Guardian.pdf [accessed 2010-02-11].
Cooke, Lynne. “A visual convergence of print,
television, and the internet: charting 40
years of design change in news presentation”
in New Media & Society, February 2005, Vol.
7, No. 1, pp. 22-46.
Craig, Robert. “Ideological Aspects of Publication Design” in Design Issues, MIT Press,
Spring 1990, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 18-27.
Cushing, Lincoln. “Meshed Histories: The
Influence of Screen Printing on Social Movements” in Voice: AIGA Journal of Design
[online journal], May 26, 2009, Copyright:
—. ”The Situationists and the New Forms
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Garcia, Mario. Contemporary Newspaper
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The Guardian. ”Awards” [web page] under
Guardian Print Centre > Awards. Copyright:
Guardian News and Media Ltd. 2010. http://
www.guardian.co.uk/gpc/awards [accessed
on 2010-03-01].
Guardian News & Media. ”Circulation &
Readership” [web page] under Advertising
information from Guardian News & Media
> The Guardian > Circulation & Readership.
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Klinenberg, Eric. “Channeling into the
Journalistic Field: Youth Activism and the
Media Justice Movement” in Bordieu and the
Journalistic Field (Rodney Benson & Erik
Neveu ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press 2005,
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Kress, Gunther & van Leeuwen, Theo. “Front
Pages: (The Critical) Analysis of Newspaper
Layout” in Approaches to Media Discourse
(edited by Allan Bell & Peter Garrett). Oxford: Blackwell 1998, pp. 186-219.
Krippendorff, Klaus. The Semantic Turn. A
New Foundation For Design. Boca Raton:
CRC Press, 2006.
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Lowrey, Wilson. “Explaining Variability in
Newspaper Design: An Examination of the
Role of Newsroom Subgroups” in Journalism
& Mass Communication Quarterly, Summer
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Mattick, Paul. “Ideology” in Oxford Art
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Peetre, Benjamin. “Så hittar du i nya formen”
in Sydsvenskan [”Så funkar det” unique
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de Vries, James. “Newspaper Design as
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Wollen, Peter. “Bitter Victory: The Art and
Politics of the Situationist International” in
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Mass: MIT Press, 1989, pp. 20-61.
Rosenberg, Jennifer & McCarroll, Stacy.
“Artist presentation: Sarah Charlesworth”
[synopsis and analysis of artist talk at The
National Graduate Seminar of The American
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School of the Arts. http://www.thephotographyinstitute.org/journals/1999/charlesworth.
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Smith, Ron F. “How Design and Color Affect
Reader Judgment of Newspapers” in Newspaper Research Journal, 1989, Vol. 10, No. 2,
pp. 75-86.
Sydsvenskan, ”Om Sydsvenskan” [web page].
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Om-Sydsvenskan-.html [accessed on 201003-01].
Turner, Francia. “Contemporary PrintMaking: Old Means and New: The Work
of Kelpra, Mara, Heindorff ” in Oxford Art
Journal, Oxford University Press, 1983 ,Vol.
6, No. 1 [special issue Print], pp. 30-38.
Turley, Richard. “Off the Grid” [web page]
on The Design Observer Group Sites: Observatory, posted July 7, 2007, Copyright:
Observer Media LLC. http://observatory.
designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=5667
[accessed 2010-02-16 including reader comments].
Viénet, René. “The Situationists and the New
Forms of Action Against Politics and Art” in
Internationale Situationniste, no. 11, October 1967 [translated by Ken Knabb]. http://
47|76
Appendix
48|76
49|76
Appendix
1.1 Scans of analysed issue (the second digit indicates page number)
50|76
1.3
51|76
Appendix
1.10
1.11
52|76
53|76
Appendix
1.14
1.15
54|76
55|76
Appendix
1.31
1.34
56|76
57|76
Appendix
2 Sources of distant elements
58|76
59|76
Appendix
60|76
61|76
Appendix
3 Original files
62|76
63|76
Appendix
64|76
65|76
Appendix
4 Presentation material
66|76
67|76
Appendix
5 Guardian Collection brochure
Guardian Collection
The Guardian of the Spectacle
An ideological analysis of newspaper design and proposals for
détournement
Krister Bladh
“The spectacle manifests itself as an enormous positivity, out of reach
and beyond dispute. All it says is: ‘Everything that appears is good;
whatever is good will appear.’ The attitude that it demands in principle is the same passive acceptance that it has already secured by
means of its seeming incontrovertibility, and indeed by its monopolization of the realm of appearances.“ (Guy Debord, 1967.) Situationisterna gjorde motstånd med hjälp av détournement (en kommunikation innehållande en kritik av sig själv). Fem tidningsframsidor har här
détournerats, eller omdesignats, utan att lägga till något i innehållet.
De screentrycktes av (3)Screen i Malmö och tidningens redaktion fick
sedan en omvänd prenumeration. Titta gärna närmare på trycken och
bläddra i originalen, men lägg tillbaka dem på rätt plats. Uppsatsen
finns att köpa på lulu.com. För mer information om projektet skriv till
[email protected]
HAIRLINE
HAIRLINE
GG
GG
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
Guardian
Sans Headline
THIN
THIN
GG
GG
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
Guardian
Sans Headline
LIGHT
LIGHT
GG
GG
» design »
implicit
Samtidigt sker en förflyttning uppåt, längs
den grå linjen. Men måste det vara så att
designandet minskar expliciteten? Naturligtvis inte. Genom att skapa explicita avvikelser
för varje område kan linjens lutning på sikt
minskas, allteftersom normalfallen flyttas.
Avikelserna kan skapas med hjälp av détournement och detta examensprojekt ger fem
exempel på hur det kan utföras.
implicit
material
format
format
assumed relationship
typography
layout
deviation
photo
explicit
content
graphics
REGULAR
ads
constant
content
REGULAR
REGULAR
GG
GG
GG
MEDIUM
MEDIUM
MEDIUM
MEDIUM
Guardian
Egyptian Text
Guardian
Sans Headline
GG
GG
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
GG
Guardian
Egyptian Text
GG
Guardian
Sans Headline
SEMIBOLD
SEMIBOLD
GG
GG
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
BOLD
Guardian
Agate Sans
Guardian
Agate Sans
Guardian
Sans Headline
BOLD
BOLD
BOLD
GG
GG
GG
GG
BLACK
BLACK
BLACK
BLACK
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
Guardian
Egyptian Text
GG
Guardian
Egyptian Text
Guardian
Sans Headline
GG
Guardian
Sans Headline
Guardian
Agate Sans
GG
Guardian
Agate Sans
ULTRA
explicit
content
REGULAR
GG
GG
improved relationship
explicit
constant
» detournément »
implicit
På liknande sätt kan alla viktiga delar av den
grafiska designen inordnas i ett hypotetiskt
diagram. Det av designers antagna förhållandet speglar devisen “den bästa designen
är den som inte märks” och representeras av
den linje normalfallen ordnar sig längs. När
man designar sker en förflyttning åt höger
i diagramet: det dagligen föränderliga innehållet sorteras och anpassas enligt konstanta former.
Guardian
Sans Headline
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
Guardian
Egyptian Headline
En ideologisk analys av ett nummer av brittiska dagstidningen The Guardian resulterade i denna modell: Olika aspekter av designen (t ex formatet) kan placeras längst två
axlar: en som visar hur mycket läsaren aktivt/
kritiskt tänker på dem, samt en som visar hur
mycket de varieras med det dagligen föränderliga innehållet. Utifrån punkten där linjerna möts finns en naturlig variationsbredd,
men även avvikelser.
2 of 53
GG
constant
Guardian
Sans Headline
commercialtype.com
Commercial
68|76
69|76
Appendix
6 Sizes and rates for ads
Effective 1 November 2008
DISPLAY ADVERTISING RATES
Main News and Other Newsprint Sections excluding G2
Main News
Other newsprint
sections ex G2*
G2
G2
33x8
33cms x 8 columns
Colour Mono
£34,000 £21,420
Colour Mono
£18,000 £11,400
Colour Mono
£12,000 £7,952
Front Page
Solus 8x10
Page 2/3
22x5 or 12x10
Fixed Day
Fixed Position
Colour
£3,250
Colour
Mono
+10%
Rate on application
£5,500
£5,500
Colour
£7,000
+10%
Rate on application
£28,900 £18,207
Mono
£3,250
£5,950
Mono
£7,000
£5,950
£15,300 £9,690
£10,200 £6,759
24x10
24cms x 10 columns
22x5
22cms x 5 columns
8x10
8cms x 10 columns
18x4
18cms x 4 columns
14x4
14cms x 4 columns
16x3
16cms x 3 columns
12x3
12cms x 3 columns
8x3
8cms x 3 columns
Colour Mono
£11,368 £7,533
Colour
£5,573
Colour
£4,706
Colour
£3,715
Colour
£2,786
Colour
£2,477
Colour
£1,858
Colour
£1,238
DPS
28cms x 14 columns
Page
28cms x 7 columns
£9,663
£6,403
£4,737
Colour Mono
£16,500 10,395
All other sizes
- Scc
G2
Page
44cms x 10 columns
Front Page
Solus 7x2
Other newsprint
sections ex G2*
Main News
DPS
44cms x 20 columns
Colour
£58
Colour
£9,000
Mono
£3,836
£3,261
Mono
£5,670
Fixed Day
Mono
£37
+10
£4,000
Mono
£3,348
£2,846
1/2 Page
14cms x 7 columns
Colour
£5,000
Mono
£3,150
£3,158
Mono
£2,720
£2,312
£2,368
Mono
£2,040
£1,734
Guardian Weekend /
The Guide
£1,542
£1,579
£17,000
£1,156
Outside Back Cover
£12,000
Inside Front Cover
£12,000
£9,000
Fixed Position
+10%
Fixed Position
The Guide scc
£150
Rate on application
Discount opportunities available in
regional listings of the Guide.
No more than 50g or 16 pages
Main Paper - Mon-Sat - Loose Inserts
Guardian Weekend - Loose Inserts
Guardian Weekend - Bound-in Inserts
Guardian Weekend Single Sheet Tip-on card
The Guide - Bound-in Inserts
More than 50g or 16 pages
*See overleaf for all sections by day
70|76
Mono
£1,360
£1,053
Mono
£907
£771
Inserts
Inserts
Double Page Spread
Page
£2,105
Mono
£1,814
71|76
Rate per ‘000
£50
£55
£70
£35 + page rate
£70
Rate on application
Appendix
7 Sydsvenskan – så funkar det
sydsveNskaN – så fuNkar det
Lördag 7 mars 2009
sydsveNskaN – så fuNkar det
Lördag 7 mars 2009
● Nya sydsveNskaN Papperstidningen
A20 EKONOMI
● Vinjetterna talar
Torsdag 30 november 2009
EKONOMI
Torsdag 30 november 2009
Hushållen
tackar nej
till köpfest
3
…från Ylva Yngveson, privatekonom på
Swedbank
Nu börjar månadens lön att betalas ut och många
får minskad skatt. Men experterna tror inte på någon köpfest – mycket av skattesänkningen kommer
att gå till sparande.
Även bankernas privatekonomer
tror på ett ökat sparande efter årets
skattesänkning.
– Jag tror att många kommer att
spara nu. Men har man jobb och
inte alls är orolig och dessutom redan har en bra buffert, kanske man
kan spendera, säger Ann-Sofie Magnusson, familjekonom på Ikanobanken.
För den som har pengar att göra
av med kan det vara fyndläge på en
del håll.
– Det är till exempel bra tillfälle
att köpa kapitalvaror eller göra reparationer i hemmet, säger Ylva
Yngveson, privatekonom på Swedbank.
TexT
BRITT-MARIE BERGSTRÖM
britt-marie.bergstrom
@sydsvenskan.se
3
Amortera. Om
du har mycket
lån, till exempel
dyra topplån på
bostaden eller konsumtionslån, kan
det finnas anledning
att amortera av
sparar hellre. Familjen Bernström räknar med bättre ekonomi. ”Vi lever inte i sus och dus och håller
Så mycket minskar skatten
Inkomstskatt 2009 jämfört med 2008,
kronor/månad, löntagare.
Lön
15 000
20 000
25 000
30 000
35 000
40 000
45 000
50 000
55 000
60 000
65 000
70 000
Minskad skatt 2009
210
260
330
640
980
980
1 110
1 110
1 110
1 110
1 110
1 110
Förutsättningar: kommunalskatt exkl
kyrkoavgift 31,44 procent, kyrkoavgift
1,2 procent.
Källa: Institutet för privatekonomi Swedbank.
nere kostnaderna”, säger Charlotte Bernström, här med maken Håkan och barnen Vilmer och Filippa.
Extrapengarna går rakt ner i spargrisen
LOMMA
faKta
SAS säger upp 200 anställda på
Kastrup utanför Köpenhamn. I första hand drabbas anställda i dotterbolaget SAS Ground Services (SGS).
Det skriver resenyhetsbrevet Take Off på måndagen.
Uppsägningarna är en
följd av de fackliga förhandlingar som avslutades för några veckor sedan och är en del av SAS
senaste sparpaket på cirka 1 miljard kronor.
Den främsta orsaken
till att 200 får lämna SGS
är att SAS minskat antalet avgångar från Kastrup och därmed behöver
mindre personal inom
sin marktjänstservice,
enligt Take Off.
Men redan för drygt
ett år sedan presenterade SAS tuffa sparkrav
på SGS och andra dotterbolag inom koncernen.
Det talades även om att
SAS skulle sälja SGS. De
planerna lades på is, men
nu aktualiseras frågan
igen.
SAS har ännu inte bestämt vilka SGS-anställda som ska få gå, utan
det väntas offentliggöras
i samband med nästa
styrelsemöte den 3 februari.
nIclAS ERIcSon
[email protected]
2
Spara i aktiefonder.
Gäller långsiktigt
sparande. Det finns
fortfarande risk för
att kurserna går ner.
Bred riskspridning
minskar risken.
Familjen Bernström får drygt en
tusenlapp mer kvar av månadslönerna när skatten sänks.
Men trots att deras ekonomiska utsikter för året ser rätt
så goda ut har de inga planer på
att omedelbart göra av med sina
extrapengar.
De flyttade in i det nyinköpta radhuset i Lomma för några veckor sedan. Det mesta verkar ha kommit på
plats. Fast inte hatthyllan i hallen.
– Den står där, säger Håkan Bernström och pekar på en långsmal kartong som står lutad mot väggen innanför ytterdörren.
”Jag hade
till exempel
tänkt köpa
nya överdrag
till sofforna,
men väntar
med det.”
charlotte bernström
”Jag hade
till exempel
tänkt köpa
nya överdrag
till sofforna,
men väntar
med det.”
charlotte bernström
Tidigare bodde de i Västerås. Men de
har länge haft funderingar på att flytta till Skåne som Charlotte ursprungligen kommer ifrån.
– Vi valde mellan Vellinge och
Lomma. När jag googlade såg jag att
BenjaMin Peetre
Lomma valts till en av landets bästa
skolkommuner. Då bestämde vi oss
för att flytta hit, berättar Charlotte
Bernström.
Prisnedgången på bostadsmarknaden har gynnat dem vid husköpet.
– Vi betalade 3 150 000 kronor för
huset. Några månader tidigare hade
en granne sålt ett likadant för 3,5 miljoner, säger Håkan Bernström.
– Samtidigt fick vi gå ner lite i pris
när vi sålde vårt förra hus, tillägger
Charlotte Bernström.
Hon jobbar hos Kronofogden och
han på ABB. Det gjorde de tidigare också, men nu är deras arbetsort
Malmö i stället för Västerås.
De tittar på tabellen över hur mycket skatten sänks i samband med januarilönen och konstaterar att deras
sammanlagda skatt minskar med ungefär 1 200 kronor i månaden.
– Det behövs, säger Charlotte Bernström.
– Vi har haft en del kostnader i
samband med flytten, säger Håkan
Bernström.
Ett stort orosmoln just nu är att
det nyligen uppstod en vattenläcka
i huset i Västerås strax innan köparna skulle flytta in. Håkan Bernström
för diskussioner med försäkringsbolaget om vilka kostnader försäkringen täcker.
– Jag tror att det löser sig, säger
han.
Fast det som hänt har fått dem att
avvakta med en del inköp till huset.
– Jag hade till exempel tänkt köpa
nya överdrag till sofforna, men väntar med det, säger Charlotte Bernström.
De tycker trots allt att de har en stabil ekonomi och har också i samband
med flytten sagt upp diverse mobiloch kabel-tvabonnemang för att spara pengar.
På plussidan under året finns ock-
så förväntade lägre boendekostnader, bland annat genom sänkta bolåneräntor.
De sätter redan av några tusenlappar varje månad till en kapitalförsäkring och till sitt semesterkonto.
Det pengatillskott de räknar med
att få kommer de antagligen att lägga undan.
– Vi brukar göra det om vi får extrapengar, för att inte höja vår standard. Men du är mer sparsam än jag,
säger Charlotte Bernström och ler
mot sin man.
– Ja, jag tycker det skulle vara jobbigt att ha fem dagar kvar till den
25: e men inte ha några pengar kvar,
säger han.
De är medvetna om att de sitter i
en hyfsad ekonomisk sits jämfört
med en del andra.
– Det är klart att vi är vinnare. Vi
har jobb, får lägre skatt och lägre
ränta, säger Håkan Bernström.
ElISABETh AndERSSon
Så mycket sparas
Andel av hushållens disponibla inkomst
som går till sparande i procent. Siffrorna
för 2009 är en prognos.
13,2
11,3
11,1
10,1
stimulanspaket för miljarder. Norges regering
presenterade ett nytt stimulanspaket med 20 miljarder norska kronor på måndagen. Paketet, som syftar
till att få fart på ekonomin och förhindra att arbetslösheten stiger ytterligare, var något mindre än väntade
25–30 miljarder norska kronor.
HässLEHOLM
LAndsKrOnA
M Detaljhandelsföreta-
M Ytterligare
Bergendahls
varslar 94
get Bergendahls varslar
94 anställda på sitt huvudkontor i Hässleholm.
Bergendahlsgruppen fick
i december besked om
att ett 80-tal livsmedelshandlare i Vi-kedjan byter leverantör då det nuvarande och därmed gällande leveransavtalet löper ut den 31 oktober i
år.
Det betyder att företaget förlorar närmare 30
procent av grossiströrelsens årliga intäkter. Bergendahlskoncernen är ett
familjeföretag som har
funnits sedan 1839 och
driver bland annat wkedjan City Gross.
TT
Länsförsäkringar
sänker räntor
3,3
3,3
4,0
1,7
Sverige
USA
EMU
Japan
Källa: Konjunkturprognos våren 2009, erik
Penser Bank.
● Smalspalter i större artiklar ger plats åt kompletterande
innehåll, talande citat eller rakt presenterade råfakta.
● Spalterna kan variera i bredd. Normala nyhetsspalter är antingen 38 mm eller 52 mm breda.
M Länsförsäkringar
sänker tremånadersräntan
på bolån med 0,15 procentenheter till 3,10 procent och räntan på lån
med ett års bindningstid
sänks med 0,05 procentenheter till 3,20 procent.
Övriga räntor lämnas
oförändrade.
TT
50 arbetare
kommer att varslas om
uppsägning hos Haldex
Brake i Landskrona, enligt IF Metalls verkstadsklubb på fabriken. Beskedet lämnades till facket
på måndagseftermiddagen enligt en lapp.
TT
sTOCKHOLM
Sjunkande
huspriser
M Småhuspriserna i Sverige sjönk med 4 procent mellan de senaste
tremånadersperioderna, enligt Småhusbarometern från Statistiska
centralbyrån,där priserna
under perioden november–januari jämförs med
priserna i otkober.
TT
GÖTEBOrG
Hamnen varslar
155 personer
M Göteborgs Hamn varslar 155 anställda om uppsägning. Både hamnarbetare, tjänstemän och chefer måste gå sedan både
exporten och importen
av gods minskat mycket
kraftigt.
TT
● Heldragna linjer separerar
artiklar och notiser från varandra.
● Nya sidaN 2
Här tar vi ut svängarna
Dagens urval
● Målet
är angelägen och underhål­
lande läsning och en bildjournalistik
som tar ut svängarna lite extra.
Målet är också att den här tidning­
en ska hitta sin givna plats i högen
bland dina andra favoritmagasin.
Vi kommer att lägga lite kraftigare
fokus på det som ligger nära oss. Det
som angår oss, i vardagen.
Handfasta och receptbaserade ar­
tiklar om mat ska varvas med ren
lustläsning. Vi kommer att skriva
både om vad vi har på oss och om vad
vi har för oss.
Vi ska försöka lära känna personer
– kända och okända – på ett lite annat
sätt än vad vi brukar.
Vi ska vara en hjälpsam tidning,
som dels förbereder dig på vad som
är på gång, dels guidar dig i tillvaron
som den ser ut nu. Både vad gäller
praktiska och till synes ytliga saker
som vad som är trendigast att dricka
på kaffebarerna just nu och inom­
bordsfunderingar som handlar om
avgörande livsval.
Både och är viktigt.
72|76
Maria G Francke
artikeltexten, eller ”brödtexten” som
vi brukar säga. Vårt gamla Gazette,
som introducerades i den gamla full­
formatstidningen 19 november 1996,
får nu ge plats åt Miller Daily.
Jämfört med Gazette är Miller Daily
lite tätare och kraftigare och fungerar
utmärkt i de smalare tabloidspalter­
na. Dessutom går vi upp i grad på tex­
ten och ökar radavståndet något för
att förbättra läsbarheten.
Miller Daily har sitt ursprung i ett
typsnitt som skapades i Glasgow i
början av 1800­talet och som impor­
terades till USA där det blev känt som
Scotch Roman. Och det var den tra­
ditionen nu 72­årige Matthew Carter
utgick från när han designade Miller
på 1990­talet.
Matthew Carter har för övrigt också
skapat särskilda webbtypsnitt, bland
annat det vitt spridda Georgia som
nya Sydsvenskan.se har som förval
på flera ställen.
Jämförelse
Typsnitt
Grad
Radavstånd
Nu
Miller
9,5 punkter
10,5 punkter
Då
Gazette
8,75 punkter
10,3 punkter
1 punkt = 0,376 mm
● radavståndet i brödtexten är
10,5 punkter. Det är lika mycket
som 3,704 mm, alltså lite mer än
en tiokronas tjocklek.
fakta
Formfranska
● Seriff. Tunna
tvärstreck på bokstäver. Även samlande benämning
på det typsnittssläkte som just har
seriffer. Denna typsnittssort uppstod
redan under antiken
och kallas ibland
också antikva. I nya
Sydsvenskan använder vi serifftypsnitten Moderno för
en del rubriker och
ingresser och Miller
för brödtexten.
● Prickiga linjer ligger bland annat
mellan notiserna och runt smalspalter.
● Nya söNdagsmagasiNet
Nu förvandlas Sydsvenskans söndagsdel från en tabloid i mängden till ett lite lyxigare magasin. Mer varierat innehåll, mer aktuellt och dessutom snyggare.
● I nya tidningen byter vi också stil på
Haldex fortsätter
skära ned
52 mm
● Satsytan kallas den del av papperet som går att trycka
på. I Sydsvenskan är den 248 mm bred och 372 mm hög.
Brödtext med
rötter i Skottland
teXt: tt foto: lise Åserud/scanPiX
sTOCKHOLM
2009
Vad är det som är förändrat i designen? Här är en snabbguide till Sydsvenskans nya form.
Sven-Arne Svensson, chefsekonom på Erik Penser Bank, tycker att
svenska hushåll är alltför pessimistiska.
– Även om arbetslösheten förväntas stiga kommer ändå över 90 procent att ha ett jobb. Vi får dessutom
reallöneökningar som efter skatt är
bland de högsta vi någonsin haft,
säger han.
Han hoppas att privatkonsumtionen i Sverige ökar med mer än de
1 procent han förutspått i sin prognos.
– Det gör att konjunktursvackan
blir något mildare, säger Sven-Arne
Svensson.
På Konjunkturinstitutet skulle
man också gärna se mindre försiktighet hos hushållen.
– För den enskilde individen är
det säkert rationellt att vara försiktig. Samtidigt hade det varit bra
om inte bara svenska hushåll, utan
också utländska, varit mer riskbenägna just nu. Det hade fått hjulen
att snurra i världsekonomin, säger
Mats Dillén.
Ett av alliansregeringens syften
med skattesänkningen är att försöka få mer fart på svensk ekonomi.
Men på finansdepartementet förväntar man sig inte att allt ska gå
till konsumtion.
– Det är välkommet om konsumtionen ökar lite, men det är upp till
var och en att avgöra om man köper
varor eller tjänster eller sparar, säger Ingemar Hansson, statssekreterare på finansdepartementet.
På Konjunkturinstitutet skulle
man också gärna se mindre försiktighet hos hushållen.
– För den enskilde individen är
det säkert rationellt att vara försiktig. Samtidigt hade det varit bra
om inte bara svenska hushåll, utan
också utländska, varit mer riskbenägna just nu. Det hade fått hjulen
att snurra i världsekonomin, säger
Mats Dillén.w
2008
Så hittar
du i nya
formen
Löntagare får mellan 200 och 1 100
kronor i minskad skatt på lönen
i januari jämfört med månadslönen förra året. Det är införandet av
det tredje steget i jobbskatteavdraget och en höjd nedre gräns för när
man börjar betala statlig skatt som
bidrar mest till sänkningen.
De som bor i en kommun som höjer skatten får räkna med att en del
av överskottet äts upp, men klart är
att många får behålla mer av lönen
när skatten är dragen.
På bland annat Konjunkturinstitutet, KI, räknar man med att hushållens sparande stiger till höga nivåer. KI tror att sparkvoten i Sverige ökar till nästan 15 procent, som
är en hög siffra jämfört med andra
länder. Oro för framtiden är förklaringen.
– Att hushållen är försiktiga beror på risker för arbetslöshet. En
del har också förlorat en del pengar
på börsnedgången och känner behov av att öka sitt sparande, säger
Mats Dillén, generaldirektör på KI.
Bind inte upp
pengarna. Om
du inte har någon
buffert alls bör du
a som mål att spara
minst två månadslöner. Ha bufferten
på till exempel
bankkonto, Riksgälden eller i räntefonder. Välj ett konto
som omfattas av
insättningsgaranti.
2009
i de större artiklarna
gör det lättare att
orientera sig i innehållet.
1
2009
● Större ingresser
M Flygbolaget
spartIps
2008
● rubriker ger
en fingervisning
om innehållet, och
storleken på bokstäverna signalerar
också vilken dignitet nyheten har.
A21
SAS säger upp
200 på Kastrup
M prIvata pENgar Skattesänkningen
inte bara om vilket
ämne som berörs
utan visar också
vilka texter och bilder som hör ihop.
2008
vi introducerar i nya Sydsvenskan.
Det är en mycket omfattande font­
familj som ursprungligen togs fram
när den brittiska kvalitetstidningen
The Guardian gjorde om sin design
för fyra år sedan.
Teckensnittet är ritat av den 31­åri­
ge amerikanske fontdesignern Chris­
tian Schwartz. För Sydsvenskans räk­
ning har han dessutom gjort två spe­
ciella rubrikstilar av Guardian, som vi
alltså är ensamma om i världen.
En fördel med Guardian är att den
finns i ett flertal varianter, både med
och utan klackar, eller med och utan
”seriffer”. I Sydsvenskan använder vi
den så kallade mekanvarianten Guar­
dian Compact i sidhuvuden och vin­
jetter och Guardian Sans i allt från de
största rubrikerna till de minsta fak­
tarutorna.
Ekonomichef: Annika Harlegård
Telefon: 040-28 12 06 Epost: [email protected]
2009
● Guardian heter ett av de tre typsnitt
● Sidhuvuden
finns på alla sidor.
När en ny avdelning
startar är sidhuvudet lite större.
2008
Inga fula typer
i den här familjen
● Här
73|76
hittar du varje dag
en enkel överblick över inte
bara de viktigaste nyheter­
na utan också de saker som
vi pratar mest om.
Varje dag har vi också en
kort text om något spän­
nande som händer i eller
med tidningen.
Längst ner hittar du
dessutom alla uppgifter
om Sydsvenskan, till exem­
pel vart du vänder dig om
du vill sätta in en annons i
tidningen, eller hur många
besökare nättidningen Syd­
svenskan.se har.
● Sanseriffer.
Ett typsnittssläkte som saknar
”klackar”. Kallas
ibland också linjärer
eller grotesker.
Vanligt exempel
är Helvetica. I nya
Sydsvenskan står
Guardian för samtliga sanseriffer.
● Mekan. En typsnittssort med raka
klackar som oftast
är lika tjocka som
staplarna i bokstäverna. Kallades förr
för egyptienne.