New Zealand's weekend companion

The Weekend Herald is a perfect example of how to strengthen an already successful brand—rather than rescuing one when it shows signs of stress. In the world of printed newspapers this has never been more critical. The biggest challenges of this redesign were answering the readers’ need for a small, intimate ‘weekend companion’ without changing the broadsheet size, and in creating a visual framework that would deliver a contemporary, engaging and usable design template not only for readers, but also for the people who put it together. With the latter in mind, a large part of the redesign process was in educating staff at all levels, in group workshops and one-on-one. The result was a newspaper that not only immediately resonated with readers, but a brand that readers felt they were truly a part of. 

A few years later, the success of bold steps we took with The Weekend Herald became the inspiration for an even bolder move—completely transforming the daily paper, which you can read about here.

The redesign included a complete audit of design and editorial elements (we counted around 100 different styles),
and the commissioning of a typeface (Founders Grotesk) by Kiwi typographer Kris Sowersby.

By reducing the number of disparate typefaces and rules we were able to create a highly flexible palette
of elements which could add visual panache without getting in the way of easy reading.

With design discipline comes familiarity—even without a couch-themed ad, this newspaper redesign
definitely fulfilled the brief of creating a ‘friendly companion’ to spend the weekend with.