My opinion on newspaper formats is this. Being a muesli-eating, hand wringing beardy liberal type, I of course think that the Berliner format is the best. It strikes a fine balance. It is not large enough to be painful to hold and it is not small enough to squeeze out all of the stories in favour of a sensationalist headline.

Mind you, I do prefer the tabloid size to the broadsheet. Not that this is a problem for me, as all of the tabloids are either not really aimed at me (The Sun, Daily Mirror, Daily Star…) or are unbelievably dull (The Scotsman, The Times, The Independent).

I have had free copies of all of those three papers thrust into my hands at university, and I’ve never been tempted to buy a copy of them the next day. You would have thought they’d choose interesting editions to give away to students, but no. I don’t like any of the daily papers anyway, so I guess I’m just too picky.

Anyway, here is the point of this post. A paragraph from that MediaGuardian article (remember that? I almost forgot) about the possibility of a Telegraph lite:

The cut-down compact – half the size of the broadsheet and half the cost – would also allow the paper to find out how much its older readership is antagonistic to a compact Telegraph. A Telegraph “lite” may tempt Daily Mail and Metro readers.

Aaargh. No! Nobody buys the Metro. The Metro serves many functions. Informing the public isn’t one of them.

The Metro is a free paper that people pick up in the station in case they are caught short and there is no bogroll in the toilet. I bet most people don’t even realise they’re picking up the Metro in their bleary-eyed state on a dark morning, half-asleep. I assume Associated Newspapers actually intend to perform a public service by distributing the paper, because if you weren’t asleep you probably will be by the time you’ve read some of it. This ensures that the British public arrives at work well-rested and fully refreshed, all set for a productive day’s work.

I hope the people at the Telegraph Group aren’t getting their hopes up by aiming for Metro readers. Unless, of course, the Telegraph lite is soft, strong and very, very long. They are scuppered already though — only the broadsheet is very, very long.

First things first then — the front page (actually, the first thing is the barcode — the checkout guy spent ages looking for it!). I’m still not sure about the nameplate. Hasn’t losing the capitals from names and titles become passe yet? Apparently the paper is now called the guardian. Or is that theguardian? The masthead itself is probably no bigger than it used to be, but with the smaller page size it takes up almost a third of the entire page. At first it seemed like to much, but I think I’m getting used to that already.

Overall, though, I like the front page. Presumably Column Five will be a regular opinion column; probably an attempt to compete with The Independent‘s ‘concept’ front pages. As Matt T pointed out, that drop cap is massive though. I know a ‘W’ will be bigger than other letters, but it takes up more than half of the width of the column.

Matt T also points out the white space beneath the headlines. What purpose does this serve?

And I know it is separated by a chunky black line, but the “UK link to terror snatches” headline is closer to the article above it than it is to its own. I do like the little menu of stories at the bottom of the page, and the way it tells you which page to turn to for the rest of the article is smart and stylish. I like it. I think the headlines could be bolder though. It seems to lack punch, but maybe the point is to be understated.

The size, I think, is perfect. I was able to flip the pages round like a tabloid. Well, I did struggle a couple of times, but I struggle with tabloids aswell, so… Height-wise it’s just right. I can now read The Guardian without hurting my back!

Beyond things like the size and fonts, though, the design doesn’t seem to have changed much to me. Strange bits from the old design which I never understood remain. Like why do ‘National’, ‘Law’, etc need to be in such large boxes?

Another problem I have is that it’s sometimes difficult to tell which article a photograph is supposed to relate to. I think in general articles could be separated out a bit more, with bold borders or something. Or use ‘bugs’, as I believe they’re called. Some parts of the paper do this, but others don’t.It all looks a bit more tightly-packed (although I don’t know whether or not it actually is).

I like the way the very top-right of the page is used to advertise websites and addresses. A very good way to point out the interesting bits of the Guardian Unlimited website. The purple banners (eg. ‘CIA terror flights’ on page 13) are eye-catching — I like them. A pleasant surprise was the presumably regular new ‘Eyewitness’ feature — a photograph spanning across two pages. A great idea.

Content-wise, I’m quite impressed overall. I have read The Guardian frequently because my father buys it, so I usually take a look. But today I got my own copy and read it on the train, so I got more of a feel for the paper over all. There is a strange moment on page 6 about passport photos (apparently it’s Orwellian that you’re not allowed to smile in passport photos from midnight today — I thought you weren’t meant to smile anyway). We are treated to four pictures of people smiling, seemingly just because. Strange.

Another weird bit is the ‘People’ section on page 16. This seems to be the stories that they couldn’t fit elsewhere, and have shoved them all into this box. The (tenuous) link between them all is that all the people have names, which they highlight by putting everybody’s name in bold. Why?

Comment & Debate. A change in title, but apart from that this section looks very familiar — apart from the leader. Almost a whole page. That’s a lot of leading! Also, the new ‘Response’ section sounds promising, but we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see that. The promised daily science page is nowhere to be seen.

The next most important thing (for me anyway) is the G2 section. It’s so dinky — I like its size; I think it should suit G2. The problem is, it doesn’t seem to. The G2 is clearly struggling with some things at the moment. The back page is good. And while I do like the Short Cuts section being on pages 2 and 3, and the G2 graphic on pages 4 and 5 is a great idea, after that it all seems to go wrong.

At first, for instance, I couldn’t tell whose column I was reading. That’s because the writer’s name is written on its side. Between columns two and three. Again, just why? I’m all for weirdy design and stuff, but I can’t see the reason for this. Having it on its side is fine, but why not before the first column? Of course, if the design stays like this in the long-run I’ll get used to it no bother, but this just seems to be needlessly weird.

You have to do a lot of turning either your head or the paper to the side when reading the G2. An old favourite, ‘Review of Reviews’, for instance is on its side. It tells you to cut it out. I don’t see anybody doing that. Style is on its side aswell, and to be honest I can see why they need to do this. But that’s why I think G2 is struggling with its new size.

Television listings have been cut back aswell. In this multi-channel age, it is good that the major digital channels are given equal space with the analogue terrestrial channels. The problem is that all of the other channels have been shunted off for good. With the launches of ITV4 and More 4 coming up quite soon, they might well have to try to squeeze two extra channels in (because I imagine those two channels being quite big). The ‘pick of the rest’ bit will be useful to nobody. Bits and pieces from each channel’s listings are shown, but not a full channel’s listings. This is no help for anybody who actually wants to find out what’s on television. It’s just as well these days we have EPGs — although if you’re going to take that approach, why publish television listings at all?

The sport and G3 sections have not been squashed to half-Berliner size like the G2 has been. It’s a bit strange for MediaGuardian to be so big! But differences are mainly cosmetic, and there’s nothing too notable here, apart from the font. Where did that come from? The same fonts get used across the paper but MediaGuardian just has to be different, eh?

Overall, I’m quite impressed, but it could do with some tidying up here and there, and the niggles with G2 need to be sorted out.

Update: Here’s an annotated front page on Flickr (via Qwghlm). I hadn’t actually noticed the difference in text between ‘news’ and ‘comment’ (see the note over Column Five)…

Update: Good posts elsewhere:

• Backword
• Blood & Treasure
• Europhobia
• Newsdesigner

In the meantime, Kitty Killer reckons this all spells danger for The Independent.

To put it lightly, and on the condition that Monday’s relaunch is not a disaster, from next week [The Independent] are fucked. For what the Indepedent had in gimmicks – tabloid size, innovative front page design, endless suduko, concept front pages – it lacks in many areas in which the Guardian embarrasses them. The Independent’s editorial is turgid. Its columnists are faceless and reflect the middling ground the paper once held 3 years ago. Many resort to natting on about their own lives or say little of consequence. It lacks a (good) sense of humour, its sport coverage is poor and it has a crap diary.

I bought the Indy once last year, and once the year before in its broadsheet form. Both times I found the paper ridiculously boring, lacking anything in the way of interesting features. I found their ‘concept front pages’ silly (although it seems to be just about the only thing that works on a tabloid-sized paper). “Viewspaper” is just an empty buzzword to me. Its tabloid size did make it much more tempting to buy though.

Right now I’m liking the Berliner size. I’ve wished for years that The Guardian would go smaller. The broadsheet is probably dead now. Is The Herald still a broadsheet?

I actually said, “Bloody hell!” I didn’t expect them to ditch the logo — it’s so recognisable, and I thought it would look just as good on a smaller page. I suppose this is all so that they can say, “look! look we’re all in colour!”, but didn’t The Daily Star say that aswell?

I’m still to read this all, but I hope the website gets improved aswell. I’ve never been satisfied with the design, especially navigation wise.

Update: More from Perfect.co.uk.