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I have said it many times before, but the relaunch of Rapport proves it yet again – readers don’t mind at all if you change your masthead.

This is the third week of the relaunch of the Sunday Afrikaans paper in South Africa, and so far, not one reader has complained about the new masthead.

Here’s the old masthead (left) compared to the new:

I used Girard as the typeface for the masthead and all the section titles.

I  have changed mastheads at all the papers I redesigned, and at every one of them, readers have not minded at all.

At Malayala Manorama, the world’s biggest vernacular language paper in India, I even made some changes to the traditional pair of elephants between the names. At Mid Day in Mumbai, the masthead was changed completely into a squarish one.  I even removed the hyphen between Mid and Day and a drawing of the sun on the old name.

In the state of Punjab in northern India, I changed the masthead of Punjab Kesari significantly and none of its more than 800,000 subscribers complained.

At Kuensel in Bhutan, I used a completely different typeface and got an artist to redraw the traditional dragon. Here’s the old and new compared.

Look at the dragon in particular. On the left you will see that there is a lot of detail in the dragon. The new one has fewer lines and the dragon scales have been removed.

Bhutanese love their dragons and even there, no one complained.

In fact, at most newspapers, the only people who think mastheads should not be changed are usually journalists who have been around for a long time. These are the old-school journalists who insist on the sanctity of mastheads.

How wrong they are! And have proven to be the case by millions of readers!

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Hundreds upon hundreds of SMSes and emails have poured into the Rapport offices complimenting the paper for the redesign.

One reader blamed the paper for a late dinner because “I spent all my time reading Sake (the business section).”

Another said he had not read the business section for 14 years but could not resist the reincarnated edition.

There were SMSes praising the use of typography, colours and design. One typical SMS was about how easy it was to read the paper, clearly referring to the typography. I had opted to use Farnham Text 9.5pt on 11pt leading, compared to the old Nimrod of 8.5pt on 10pt leading.

But of course there were complaints. The majority was about the TV listings, with older readers saying it was too small with two days’ listings in one page. Some did not like the magazine format of My Tyd, preferring the old A4 size. And strangely, a few did not like the bigger Blokraai, a kind of crossword puzzle.

There will be a few tweaks to the design in the next few days. Hopefully, there won’t be further complaints.

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The new Rapport hit the streets quite a few hours ago. Some surprises. Some bewilderment. Some shock. Some disappointment. But plenty of wow!

Here’s a typical response: “I am blown away. The new Rapport is absolutely stunning. I absolutely love the vibrant colours and the white space. It is young, beautiful and sexy. I am sure it will attract many young readers.”

I spoke to someone who had just bought the paper from a newsagent in Rosebank, and his simple words were: “It’s a huge improvement.”

Believe it or not, this has been the smoothest relaunch of a newspaper redesign I have ever experienced. And I’ve had plenty.

Editor Liza Albrecht and her entire team,  Ryk van Niekerk and David van Rooyen and their gang at the Business section, Bokkie Gerber and Rudolph Lake (a good friend and golfing partner of Ernie Els) and their sports stars, Magda Swart and her magazine geniuses, Arlene Prinsloo, Jan Morgenrood and the team of designers, the photographers, reporters and the artists all did a magnificent job!

And of course my ever-dependent poet, designer extraordinaire and fashion icon, Adonis Durado, and designers Ariel and Rodolfo who helped me make this happen. Thanks too to Charles Apple the blogging supremo who helped me with the graphics department.

I have worked on the concept and the prototypes for the past five, six months and it is such a pleasure to see the birth of a new look – without the birth pains!

I started out with massive tests with the typography. You name it, I’ve tested it! And there were at least six incarnations of Rapport on my Macs.

BUT THE BAD NEWS: My internet connection is so bad I can’t upload any photos! Boo!!!

I will be putting lots of pages on flickr soon.

It has been an awesome experience working on Rapport. This is one super huge broadsheet, measuring 58 cm x 41cm. It’s like an Airbus A380 compared to a Boeing 737!

But what a fantastic canvas that makes. Huge photos, acres of white space and plenty of playground space for designers and artists.

A black-and-white photo on the front page of the serious Weekliks section would cover the top half of an American broadsheet.

I took advantage of the printing capabilities of the presses and turned Rapport into a symphony orchestra – broadsheet for the main section, Weekliks, Sports and Careers, tabloid for Sake (the Business section which used to be a broadsheet and pronounced sarker), Doen Dit (meaning Do It, a going out guide), and a magazine format for the former Tydskrif which we renamed My Tyd (My Time).

The colour palette was chosen to reflect South Africa, with plenty of red (a link to the old paper) and yellow which I seem to see wherever I go in the country.

Typography is limited to three families – an interplay of the various weights of Boomer and Farnham (both from Font Bureau) and Zine (from fontfont in Germany).

There were lots of fantastic stories in the launch issue. And zillions of superb ideas from all the sections.

I could see everyone was having fun. Can’t wait to see the circulation figures, but that will come next week. Will keep you posted.

That’s Jan and I with the Page 1 on the screen.

Here’s Editor Liza and I inspecting the first copies on the grass patch outside the printing press.

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Millions of Afrikaaners are being infected by a fabulous jingle on television, humming and singing it in their bath-tubs, in the kitchen and at work!

The ditty is a part of a TV campaign to relaunch the national Sunday paper, Rapport, this Sunday (Oct 25). Here is the jingle on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdrB6Vat-jI

The jingle is a take-off from a 1950s Afrikaans song, Ou Ryperd (meaning Old Horse, ryperd rhyming with Rapport). The words were re-written to describe the new paper, and ends with the words “Be prepared. Oct 25″.

Rapport got a very famous singer, Kevin Leo, to sing the jingle aired on national TV.

Hundreds of full-page ads have also been placed  in Afrikaans broadsheets in the past two weeks with the same line.

There is certainly a buzz in the newsroom like they have never seen in decades.

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Rapport, the naitonal Afrikaans daily, launches its redesign this Sunday.

Here is a sneak preview of the prototype.

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The Big Day draweth nigh.

A redesign of South Africa’s national newspaper, Rapport, is to be relaunched on Oct 26.

My team and I have worked feverishly to make this happen and from the zillions of emails between Johannesburg and us in Sydney, we know this is going to be one hugely exciting experience for the folks there.

Rapport is a 330,000-circulation Sunday paper in Afrikaans. It has not had a redesign since 1999.

Together with the new look, we are doing some exciting things with the content and packaging but more of this later.

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I can’t believe that a national newspaper such as The Straits Times in Singapore would allow obscenities to be posted on its website.

A reader posted the following comment on an interview with Ris Low, the newly-crowned Miss Singapore World.

The comment deliberatelly misspelt words that would have been easily caught by the computer dictionary. But the question is: Where are the checks before comments are posted?

Ironically, there is a warning by The Straits Times that such users will be banned in future.

The comments posted online at the paper’s website seem to show me one thing: the intellectual  level (or lack of it) of its readers.

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I read a lot of newspapers and magazines.

Some I enjoy exceedingly such as the UK’s Guardian, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Conde Nast Traveller, the US edition of Esquire, Vanity Fair, and lots more.

Some just make me cringe. One of the main reasons is that I have to try and figure out what the writers are saying in their convoluted way of story-telling. And worse still, they use terms I don’t understand.

OK, call me stupid, but can anyone tell me what these mean:

• non-renounceable entitlement offer

• management internalisation plan

• pre-emptive right provision

And that’s just from a couple of pages of a business section!

Why can’t newspapers do what the Wall Street Journal does, ie: explain everything, even a simple word like budget (and that in a financial newspaper)!

Why do lesser newspapers think they are beyond explanation? Remember the maxim we learned in our first days in journalism? Explain everything as if the reader is reading your story for the first time!

Whatever has happened to good journalism?

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It never ceases to amaze me that at every newspaper I go to, journalists swear by what they are taught, either in college or by some mentor or another, or what they have been doing for years, even decades.

The thing I hear most often is this: “But we’ve always done it that way.”

It is well nigh impossible to change even though something is obviously better.

Take, for example, white space on pages, a rare commodity in many newspapers.

White space makes pages look beautiful, among other things. But try and incorporate that into a design and you are faced with resistance, especially from editors who want to make use of every available square centimetre, even the gutter space if possible!

I remember as a young boy of about 15, I often wondered how newspapers could fill up every page every day. Back then, I already knew it was not possible that all the news fitted so nicely! Somebody had to do something.

Years later, as a reporter and later a sub, I did exactly what I was told – cut a story to fit, add if it’s too short. Just make sure it fills up the space!

Unfortunately, this is what 99.9 per cent of journalists continue to do.

But in my limited research and from anecdotal evidence, I know that readers are more accepting of change than most journalists are. And they love white space!

My advice to journos: Think more like readers rather than journalists! And if you don’t like what the paper is doing, go find another job where they will let you do what you want.

I’ll bet you my last dollar you can’t find any workplace that allows you to do that.

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Ask any editor how many stories they expect on Page 1 every day and you’re bound to  get a number.

One editor I know insists on four stories every day. Do or die.

Some prefer 25 (Philippines’ Daily Star), some 3 and some 10.

To me it’s astounding that editors can conjure up a number and  make that their golden rule of journalism with little regard to the quality and length of stories, design and so on.

Yesterday, I heard about how one editor got so upset there were only three stories on his beloved Page 1 instead of his magic 4, that he sent a nasty email to  several people. One of them was nearly in tears!

Dictatorial journalism? Terrorist editors?  They shouldn’t be in their jobs!

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