“Sie ist ein Berliner”

…said Alan Rusbridger in yesterday’s “Collectors’ Edition” (my friends giggled at this) of the Guardian – the last ever broadsheet.

From tomorrow it switches to the new “European” midi format and we had a taster in yesterday’s edition too. First impressions are good, it looks like it will be much more wieldy (I think that’s what I mean) and the new half-Berliner G2 section will be an especially handy size for journeying with.

However, I do have reservations.

– Don’t like the new masthead (Guardian with a small G…please, no)

– Why does it have to be all colour? Is this kind to the environment?

– It’s not just me who finds the new font a bit too “Independent-ey”.

The “Collectors’ Edition” indicates how seriously the Guardian staff are taking themselves, but when you consider the logistics of this particular format change, you can see why they might be getting quite excited. We’ll still be getting basically the same product with slightly different packaging. But they have to make changes to the way they do pretty much everything to be ready for printing on their new MAN Roland presses, a process covered throughout the day by Victor Keegan over at the new Editors’ Weblog.

And here’s tomorrow’s front page.

So, what do we think?

About Simon Wood

Lecturer in medical education, lapsed mathematician, Doctor Who fan and garden railway builder. See simonwood.info for more...

11 thoughts on ““Sie ist ein Berliner”

  1. I like it. It’s more Tarquin-sized (I never found turning the big pages very easy, especially if someone was sitting next to me). I don’t particularly mind guardian with a small “g” (I wonder whether all capital letters will be gone in another couple of generations – like Hindi). Why didn’t they call it the Guardian nano?

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