(This is the original (too long) article I wrote about Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin for "INK" – a 72-hour newspaper project at the SND Denver seminar in September 2010. A shorter version was published with the headline "How simple can it get?". Read about the INK project in SNDS Magazine p 18.)
Niche magazine keeps things simple – and lets the occasional visual explosions speak for themselves. By Lars Pryds
A high profile business magazine, printed on expensive glossy paper, aimed at a very narrow target group: the absolute top executives of the Danish business world – does this sound like a direct route to a short life as a publication? Could be, but
Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin (BNY) just celebrated its 25th anniversary – and even got an increase in readership as a present! Fresh numbers say that we’re up from 79.000 to 80.000 readers since last year – not much, but these days, when most printed media are losing readers big time, even a small step forward seems like a huge success.
Does design have anything to do with it? Hard to tell. What’s easy to tell is that the magazine was redesigned in 2009, introducing a clean, simple, clear, and easy-to-navigate look that goes well (we believe) with readers who are very particular with both time and quality. BNY aims to supply the CEOs, CFOs, and all the other Cs in private businesses with both insight, useful information and a bit of relaxation at the end of the week. We try to live up to Mario Garcia’s directions in his book “pure design”: “(It) is all about paving the way for readers to move through a publication almost effortlessly, while enjoying the experience”.
Simple and self-explanatoryHence, one of the principles for the design structure is “keep it simple”. This goes for the way we use illustrations as well. A business mag is bound to show a lot of executives in suits and ties, but to complement the inevitable, we try to come up with at least one surprise in each issue. Often photographers are asked to work creatively with the portraits. The photo of the two business men with their feet in the water is a play with the words of an old Danish expression – if Denmark is not thinking globally, we’re stuck in the local duck pond. Getting these guys to roll up the trouser legs of their impeccable suits took the persuasion of a great photographer, Erik Refner.
In other cases, the illustration is self-explanatory. For an article about the decline in advertising in printed media, we accompanied the words with empty placeholder frames for the ads – and reserved the opening spread for the headline (which reads, “Here, we would have loved to print an ad”) and the intro. Over the remaining spreads we placed more empty frames, complete with information about the size of the available space in small print in the corners.
__This actually caused the printers to call us in panic when we sent the files: "Something is missing!! The ads have not been included in the files!!" So we were convinced, even before we had the printed copy in our hands, that the visual gimmick actually worked!
__The impact of the project was confirmed, when BNY was given an Award of Excellence in the SNDS Best of Scandinavian News Design 2010 competition – to be presented at the SNDS Oslo seminar on September 30, 2010. (See all pages from this project
here).
Small group – great ideasOur editorial group is a small one – the editor, five reporters, two subeditors, two ADs, and, shared with other publications of the Berlingske Media house, proofreader, research, photo staff etc. One of the cool things about working in a small group is that ideas are constantly circulating in the office – and sometimes it’s hard to tell where the idea was actually born. The very simple Google/Apple/Microsoft opening illustration was finished before the synopsis of the article had been fully developed. I remember the reporter, Anders Rostgaard, saying, “Well, now you’ve made the illustration, all I have to do is write something that goes with it ...”
On the cover of …The cover is a special concern every week. The “safe” solution is the typical close-up of the face of a wellknown business tycoon (top left). We don’t have that many of this breed in Denmark, so for some of the 40 covers per year we have to come up with something else. A variation is the “De første 100 dage” issue (top second from left) – where the CEO of a large clothing company is portrayed taking off his jacket, getting ready for the first 100 days in the job. The Brazil issue (top third from left) is a bit unusual - we sent a reporter to the big South American country and lured readers in to read business analyses by showing some of the folklore and – for a change – a pretty young girl on the cover.
Another solution is the “graphic cover” – blowing the headline up to 800 point size across the page, setting it in bold and printing it in a gold or silver spot color. This is often the case for the handful of special issues that are published every year and that have become an institution for the magazine and its loyal readers. A variation of the “graphic” cover is the China issue (top right), where only a few of the stars in the Chinese flag are seen on the monochrome red background that makes the cover stand out on the kiosk shelves.
Zooming in on this kind of detail is dangerous, however – how much can you take away before the information is lost? We discarded a clean and very eye-catching cover based on a detail of the characteristic IKEA logo, held of course in the Swedish blue and yellow colours. The graphic shapes stood out wonderfully on the page, but so abstract that it was impossible to identify what it was. Artistic and simple, yes, but we’re here to communicate, so simple can be too simple. We try to keep that balance – every week.
.....
Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin (BNY) is published by Berlingske Media, owned by Mecom Group plc. Berlingske Media is one of the largest media houses in Denmark; its flagship Berlingske Tidende is Denmark’s oldest newspaper, published since 1749.
BNY was founded in 1985 and has over the years been published monthly, weekly, fortnightly and every three weeks. Now, 40 Friday issues are produced every year, with a pause in the summer months.
Circulation approx. 10.000.
Typography used is Berling Nova Display for headlines, Centennial for body text, Morgan Sans for navigation and the Myriad Pro family for all the rest.
More info at
www.bny.dkMore covers on BNY's
Facebook pageLars Pryds is a graphic artist and designer, Art Director at Berlingske Nyhedsmagasin since November 2009. He has previously worked at Danish newspapers Jyllands-Posten, 24timer, and Ingeniøren. He is also editor and AD of SNDS Magazine and has exhibited his paintings in galleries and museums since the early 1980ies. Pryds’ website and blog is located at
www.pryds.com
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