Redesign is not only about changing a costume

“Newspaper design is not only about colors, typography, graphics. It gives the newspaper a real personality, an identity,” says Michel Gaffre, design consultant from France.

Mr. Gaffre from Newsmedia company participanted at a recent INMA conference in Vienna (October 1-3, 2008) and shared his views with forum4editors.com on re-design process.

Michel Gaffre who worked on re-design of well known European daily newspapers like Le Monde in France and Les Temps in Switzerland underlines that design should serve the contents of the newspaper, but admits that people responsible for the contents sometimes oppose any change of layout.

“There are many people who don’t like to change. So you have to help them,” says Mr. Gaffre. “You can change the newspaper, but you have train its staff.”

According to him the main goal of layout re-design is to increase circulation. Sometimes the new layout does not help.

“When a project is not successful, the one to blame is the team from outside,” admits Mr. Gaffre.

Watch full interview with Michel Gaffre:

(Interview made by Artur Karda, multimedia reporter at Media Regionalne, Polish part of Mecom Group.) 

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