Which size is the best for a piece of paper? For newspapers, judging from pure statistics, it’s clearly the tabloid format. Most Scandinavian papers have abandoned the old-fashioned, unprac­tical broadsheet years ago. In Norway practically all papers are in tabloid, in Sweden only Hallpressen print in broadsheet – and rumour has it that the only reason for this is that their printing machines simply cannot handle the tabloid format.

But a few major papers stay with the large size.

“Broadsheet is by far the best format for a serious newspaper. It gives us more possibilities to work with visuals. Therefore, Politiken says thank you to all the other Danish newspapers who allow us to be the sole player on the big stage,” says design editor Søren Nyeland from Politiken, which at the time we went to press launched a new design – but did not shrink the paper from broadsheet to tabloid.

Helsingin Sanomat, the big Finnish newspaper, will update its design in January, and  will still be in broadsheet:

“Thinking about readers’ interests we make some changes in the structure of the paper and we will introduce some new story formats and ways of presentation,” says managing editor Hannu Pulkkinen.

“We are interested in smaller formats and personally I believe that HS will go to tabloid some day. But when, that is impossible to say.”

Look South, to the Netherlands, and get a completely different picture. The Daily XS is a prototype for, maybe, the newspaper of the future: The size is almost A4, but the asymmetrically folded mini paper is actually printed on two sheets of broadsheet paper, using  the state-of-the-art presses.

Koos Staal from Staal & Duikers has been experimenting with designing and producing mini-sized newspapers since 2005, and presented his latest version to the public in October.  If the printed paper can survive, this could be how – in a size only marginally larger than an iPad. Maybe then young readers – like this magazine’s cover girl Eva – will stay with paper just a little longer.

Speaking of the iPad – since last issue we lost Steve Jobs, the father of all things Apple. May he rest in peace, but his products live on: We take a closer look at Svenska Dagbladet’s INSIKT app for the iPad (see page 14-15). We recommend Steves biography, published only shortly after his death in the beginning of October, along with other great books that will make the days of Christmas a little easier to endure. See which ones on page 26-27.

But there is more – Aftenposten’s new design seems like a nice and gentle change to the old venerable newspaper. The use of white space on the pages is a really nice feature, and personally I’m a great fan of the paper’s seldomly used new sans serif typeface Clan – which we introduced into the weekly Ingeniøren a few years ago.

Enjoy all the other things as well – including the first glimpse of what we are preparing for the next SNDS seminar: SPACE_2012, which will be in Copenhagen on 27-28 September 2012. It will be a special event – with a new and different approach to attending a seminar. Don’t miss it! See page 8-9.

And don’t forget to collect your finest work for the next SNDS design competition. There are some great new things coming here. One is a brand new award, or actually two: We will find “Scandinavia’s Best Designed” printed newspaper as well as “Scandinavia’s Best Designed News Site”. And the best part: it’s free to enter these categories – if you enter just one other category. More info will come to you all in the beginning of January.

Until then – have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Editorial to SNDS Magazine no 4, 2011.
Lisbeth Tolstrup & Lars Pryds
Editors, SNDS Magazine