UK’s left-wing The Guardian has now taken on the shape of a tabloid with simple black lettering in its re-designed masthead – a move agreed on seven months ago as part of a drive to reduce operational costs, international media wrote.
"Our move to tabloid format is a big step towards making The Guardian financially sustainable," the paper's editor-in-chief said in a piece to the first new issue.
Katharine Viner, The Guardian’s Editor-in-Chief, said they adopted a new, uniquely Guardian font to make newspaper issues "bold, striking and beautiful":
"Since we announced our plans to change format seven months ago, it’s been an exhilarating period of creativity, imagination and focus, and I’m thrilled with the result: a new paper that feels bold, striking and beautiful, and still unmistakably The Guardian."
The aesthetic refresh is seen as a hallmark of Guardian journalism at large:
"We have grounded our new editions in the qualities readers value most in Guardian journalism: clarity, in a world where facts should be sacred but are too often overlooked; imagination, in an age in which people yearn for new ideas and fresh alternatives to the way things are," Viner wrote.
The newspaper previously had a blue and white masthead and in 2005 it adopted the co-called Berliner format, midway between a broadsheet and a tabloid.
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The shrunken Guardian will outsource its printing to tabloid-format Trinity Mirror media group, selling or scrapping its own presses – a move hoped to save the business millions of pounds annually. In the longer run, the newspaper is set to stem further losses by April 2019.
The website and apps have also undergone a redesign, making the resource "a space for big ideas, for debate, for clear thinking and new perspectives," Viner pointed out.
In recent years, The Guardian has been increasingly appealing for from its monthly 150-million-strong readership. About 800,000 make regular payments having formerly subscribed to the edition.