Project Description

Romania libera is the oldest surviving national newspaper, with an average circulation of 65,000 copies per printed edition, as audited by BRAT. The newspaper has a very important name in the Romanian publishing market and enjoys real renown and credibility amongst its readers.

Client: “R” company, the editor of Romania libera national newspaper

Romania libera daily newspaper is edited by the “R” company. Given its impressive life of over 100 years, the newspaper had secured its lead in the Romanian market with an instant recognition among its clearly positioned readers.

In the fall of 2006, the shareholders and the management of the newspaper decided to adjust the publication to a new market context in order to meet its readers’ expectations. In order to reposition itself, the shareholders asked Re:ply to assist them as it is one of the few companies on the local market with experience in such complex publishing projects.

Objectives Set for the Project

• restructuring the publication to meeting the today’s  readers’ expectations – they are not willing to allocate as much  time for reading newspapers and have access to many other means of information;
• creating a graphic concept to simplify the navigation system within the newspaper;
• making a clear expression both graphically and editorially;
• creating a dynamic reading rhythm;
• finding a way of editing that will enable readers to easily remember the most important information;
• creating a modern publishing product that is not perceived as having severed its relationship with the old newspaper.

Development of the Project

The Re:ply team worked for 6 months to complete the project of restructuring the newspaper and graphic concept based on a new editorial concept.

For simplifying the navigation within the newspaper, it was reorganized into 4 set sections, each with its title and type of content: Eveniment, Economie, Noi si Lumea, Metropola and several supplements (Mica publicitate, Timpul liber, Angajari si Cariere, Imobiliare). At the same time, a local edition section was also created. We thus managed to preserve the newspaper’s consistent content and yet facilitate the reading experience.

At a graphic level, the Re:ply designers’ intention was to create a harmonious mixture of functionality and aesthetics capable of meeting readers’ expectations. We changed the body text and title fonts. For the body text we chose a legible font specially created for the type of the paper and rotary printing press called Le Monde, the same font used at a certain time by the French newspaper. For the titles, we chose Parisine, a font that best represents the personality of Romania libera: objective, self-confident, reliable and concise. Romania libera stands as one of few newspapers in Romania that bought the fonts that they are actually using.

By setting new rules for the placement of articles within the pages, and by resizing the titles, we managed to set a hierarchy of information facilitating reading based upon an individual reader’s own interests. The dynamic reading rhythm was created by alternating the numbers of columns within the page: for news – 8 text columns, for the publishing area - 6 columns.

Our designers set a new color palette (saturated, optimistic, relaxed) able to suggest that the content is reliable: cyclamen, orange, kaki, differentiated by sections.

Outcome

• The first issue of Romania libera in its new formula, on March 12th, 2007, was a real success both in terms of readers and media;
• The new graphic concept brought the newspaper a new category of reader, without losing its traditional one;
• Romania libera is perceived by readers and by other daily newspapers as modern, able to adjust to a new and competitive market.

In august 2007, Romania libera decided to work again with Re:ply, this time to create a graphic concept for the Saturday edition. This new formula was launched on the market in October 20th.

Technical Information:

a.    Period: daily newspaper
b.    No. of pages: 28 + supplements
c.    Circulation: 65,000 copies/edition
d.    Distribution: national
e.    Format: 394 x 571,6 mm