A print paper that looks like an online paper

A few days ago, I decided to start up my own blog on journalism today and the effects of new media. I'm having fun with it and already learning a ton.

With that, I found a story from a Swiss paper that was looking to redesign their paper. One of the five groups was Information Architects, who streamlined the paper to look a lot like the print paper.


The company, iA, wasn't awarded the redesign, but they had two "controversial" ideas in their pitch:

1. Blue words. These words are meant to be scanned easily, so somebody could read the front page in 20 seconds. If somebody wanted to learn more about the story, they could type the blue words into the paper’s website search function and get more information. “Links in print obviously doesn’t mean that you can click it, it means linking the paper to the online edition.”

2. Reader comments. Next to a story that appears in print is a reader’s comment that appeared online. The goal is to further the connection between writer and reader.

If you check out my blog post, you can read a little more about it and six of their main pitches to the Swiss paper (as well as a link to iA's post about their redesign). It's a really cool read, especially if you've ever worked in layout with a paper or magazine.

And it makes you think, isn't it time for newspapers to start catering the "user"?