TagesWoche Development

TagesWoche Visual Developemnt

Visual Development, Ci + Media (Webpage,Print,...). With: Matthias Last.
Research: Attention Economy

Tageswoche Corporate system consists of Type / Icon / No. of issue or date

A definitely interesting mission with a quite social and poltical dimension: TagesWoche is a new hybrid online and print newspaper published in Basel since October 2011. The project is a reaction to the events surrounding traditional "Basler Zeitung" (main newspaper) and the missing broad range of opinions in the city: After Basler Zeitung was sold and changed their news coverage to conservative, almost right wing directions, the initiative "Rettet Basel" (Save Basel) and later on "Stiftung für Medienvielfalt" (Foundation for Plurality in Media) was founded. Out of this engagement a group of mainly journalists turned up to start their own newspaper: TagesWoche - Zeitung aus Basel

Sold out! Successful Tageswoche Launch

Together with Matthias Last we won the confidence of emerging TagesWoche team to go for our proposal. The task: Developing a simple as well as significant construction set to make either daily as weekely newsreport happen: Tages(Day) Woche(Week). The main goal of TagesWoche is to become a plattform where opinions get shared and discussions get started: both online and offline. So the attention lies on building up a community which shares online and offline the same (hyprid) medium. Herefore we worked closely with sourcefabric, experts in setting up news/community sites.

The Logotype is set in "Founders Grotesk", also used in the newspaper for headlines and captions. The green underline shows the community aspect: Every member of the community is always underlined - both on webpage and in the newspaper. The color green speaks here with an optimistic, free and transperent tongue. If you ever visited Basel you might have recognized: green is the color of the public life (tram transporation for example).

the triangle ("anecken") is communication tool and speech bubble in one

A significant symbol of the TagesWoche corporate is the green triangle. The triangle symbolises the act of interfering respectively "anecken" (almost offending). The triangle becomes the most important tool: the speech bubble of the community. Click on it and share your thoughts.

1. DEVELOPING TagesWoche WEPAGE

High exspectation on the webpage as it should become an unique place which people visit day by day hour by hour. Since the TagesWoche online team is only a handful of editors we developed a system that puts the attention always to the latest and most interesting information - according to the day time.
1. The basic status of the webpage features more or less the lead article, two following articles, the news ticker (to offer a full range of (inter)national news) and the community quote to link to a discussion.
2. In the morning the news ticker + quote change to the leften side for more attention.
3. The noon status presents a fresh written lead article incl. broad movie format picture.
4. The playful and deconstructive play with the corporate is shown in the afternoon as the grid changed (see header) and a local cultural event of the day gets also featured in the top.

As probably one of the first news pages www.tageswoche.ch is centered and gives both: web & app feeling. Means: smart human-machine interaction design, reduced header, minimal colors, hot gradients, less icons and generous white space.

basic status with articles, newsticker + community quote

order of the elements changes in the morning

focusing on the lead article at noon

splitting the layout in 2 columns (see also in the header)

Transparency is quite important for TagesWoche and a must do in Today`s journalism. Herefore every article has its backpage. With a click on the flip you'll get all information about the authors, places and sources of the used material. For more information visit the webpage and discover so many other features like the speach bubble mouseover on article headlines...

Big lead picture for dossier page

already a new institution - the weekly debate

2. DEVELOPING TagesWoche PRINT

Parallel to the developemnt of the webpage we had to find a way how to reflect and transfer its spirit, transparancy & interaction into the print issue. The advantage of the online plattform should push the printed issue into a highly communicative newspaper - as many other competitors do more or less seperate their online & offline plattform. Tricky: As green is probably the most complicated color for printing we decided to have a corporate with 2 different green tones: the most possible strongest green for 4c print and a light and fresh green for rgb use. No accident - just 2 colors, fitting best to each medium.

The cover is quite clean and simple like the webpage and shares the same ideas: prominent featuring of the community quote, bigger cover story, two or three articles with a mini lead + a mini news/article ticker. As the corporate is developed on the idea of a modular construction set there are many possibilites to play with the structure of the cover. Please have a look on the righten column:

Super reduced TagesWoche is set with only 2 typefaces. Founders Grotesk gives the paper its corporate look and supplies a modern touch with little "homemade" details. Supported by wellknown Georgia, which gives definitely the link to the online issue and speaks in big letters the idea of web 2.0. Both fonts act quite well together as you can see in this detail shot of the content page.