Postmedia, the Canadian newspaper chain, sought to reimagine their newspapers across all print and digital platforms. As García Media art director, I worked closely with project architect Mario García and Postmedia’s Chief Operating Officer Wayne Parrish, Senior Vice President for Content Lou Clancy, and Design Director Gayle Grin to develop mobile, tablet, print, and responsive web products for eight major metro newspapers.
At the first workshop with García Media and Postmedia, Mario and I presented digital and print concepts for these eight metro newspapers—Ottawa Citizen, Montreal Gazette, The Vancouver Sun, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal, Leader-Post (Regina), The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon), and The Windsor Star.
After presenting our concepts to the assembled group, Mario and I worked with Postmedia’s designers and editors, guiding them to produce additional ideas responding to our work. After the designers (Carl Neustaedter, Pegie Stark Adam, Matthew Warland, and Andrew Spearin) sent us their prototypes, Mario, Gayle, and I took the most promising elements and melded them in a new set. These “unified” prototypes would be the starting point for Postmedia’s final print, responsive web, mobile, and tablet products, emphasizing a shared visual language and close attention to the particulars of each platform.
Postmedia’s designers and editors continued developing the project after the unified prototype, and the new products were launched on May 20, 2014 at the Ottawa Citizen. The Montreal Gazette followed suit on October 21, 2014. Many of the ideas defined in the unified prototype remain, although the branding system and other elements have changed significantly. The project was covered by a number of specialist and general news sites, including Gigaom, The Globe and Mail, Global Montreal, Designedge Canada, and The Canadian Journalism Project.
For more on the project, see the García Media blog posts “In Canada, a multi-platform transformation for the Ottawa Citizen and Postmedia” and “Ottawa Citizen for iPad: Precisely what a tablet edition should be.”