The Boston Globe Calendar Section Redesign
Cover Redesign
There were a variety of challenges facing the Calendar cover redesign...
Prior to the redesign, the cover typography was outdated, the fonts no longer employed anywhere else in the paper.
Stripping the Calendar logo across the top of the image, as the old format did, greatly limited the type of image that could be used; nothing of any importance in the photo could appear behind where the logo would fall.
All the type that lay on top of the cover image in the old format — the teasers, the Calendar logo, the Boston Globe logo, the date, the volume and issue number, plus the headline and drophead for the cover story — served to push back the cover image, greatly weakening its impact.
The majority of old Calendar covers used photos that approached the cover story subject descriptively rather than conceptually. Occasionally this worked, but often it resulted in busy images that failed to convey excitement or interest.
Many of the old covers lacked the energy and presence they might have as the cover to an entertainment section.
There were also a variety of usability issues. The publication date (one of the most important pieces of information for a section that lists weekly events) was often illegible because of its small size and often busy background. If the print registration was off, legibility was a sure miss. The Boston Globe logo was often illegible for similar reasons. And the story teasers didn't indicate which column (e.g., Cheap Eats, Morse Code) they were associated with.
Solutions Proposed
I updated the typography, visually uniting the Calendar section with the rest of the paper.
I created a black, vertical strip down the lefthand side of the cover for several purposes: to address legibility and registration problems; to get the Calendar logo off the image area; to create a more vertical design emphasis for the cover; and to more closely approximate the dimensions of a 35mm photograph (the old design was much closer to a square).
As part of the redesign, I made a strong push for bold, simple cover designs. I began to use a mix of illustration, photo illustration, studio photography, and on-site photography to bring variety to the covers and offer an element of surprise.
I highlighted the section date, placing it in a circle in the upper lefthand corner of the cover. I also changed the date format to clearly indicate that the section covered a week's worth of events.
Additionally, I enlarged the Boston Globe logo and revised the story teaser format to list the column the teaser was for.
View additional post-redesign Calendar covers.
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