Hans Peter Janisch, newspaper designer with 30 years of international experience, just finished another redesign based on alternative story forms. He speaks about the future of printed newspapers and the role of design
New design of Fuldaer Zeitung done by Hans Peter Janisch. FZ is a regional German daily newspaper for the city of Fulda and its region, the east of Hesse, published since January 1874
- How important is design if you want to attract new readers?
A new design does not sell a single paper. But you can show new topics, new pages and new story forms together with a new design much more better. Those redesigned topics are the reason people buy a newspaper. Design itself is just a great tool.
- Can you point out a trend in newspaper design?
For many years, the trends were driven by a changing technology. For example, the use of Photoshop brought us many cut-out images in the paper. Today the reader creates the trends. We know, that multiple entry points into a story are essential to reach out to a younger generation. So we try to build pages with alternative story forms, that not just show text, title and pictures.
Some inside pages of Fuldaer Zeitung
- Is there a difference between a newspaper and a magazine nowadays in terms of design?
Those days are over. There is no more difference. Large pictures, great photo-cropping, infographics etc. can be found all over the market. Especially since there are art-directors in almost every newspaper nowadays.
- How do you know what the reader likes?
Nowadays we know exactly what the reader is looking for. In the age of eye-tracking it is very easy to create and design a newspaper for a certain target group. This is how we came up with all those alternative story-forms. One of the early Poynter studies showed us the importance to look beyond regular text presentations.
- The “Fuldaer Zeitung”, your current project, has been redesigned by you for the third time. How long does a newspaper design last?
Back in the old days, we used to say ”A newspaper design should last ten years”. But nowadays we look at a much shorter cycle. The importance to adapt a design to a changing readership becomes obvious pretty quick. A website looks and feels old after two or three years. A newspaper design maybe lasts a year or two longer.
- How do you see the future of newspapers? Will there be day, when they are completely replaced by digital information channnels?
No, I do not think so. This has been predicted for many other media channels too, which are still running fine. Look at radio stations. When TV got to every household, they said, this will be the end of radio. Well it was not, but radio had changed. Newspaper will have to change also to survive. There will be day, when the printed paper is available only on the weekend. During the week you rely on your news-app or e-paper.
Traditional news will leave the printed paper. By the time a newspaper gets printed, the news are old. But print works fine with background information, long story forms, alternative story telling for local and regional topics. This together with ”Living” and ”Entertainment” creates a package that works well with print – now and in the future. Even when the term ”newspaper” is outdated.
Read another interview of Hans Peter
