After: 24 Heures Montréal Sept. 8
The lesser of the two free dailies in Montreal launched with a new look today. In addition to a new logo, it includes a new colour scheme (orange and white instead of black and yellow) and new fonts (ones that seem to make it look more like Metro).
Before: 24 Heures Montréal Sept. 4
The new colours shouldn’t come as any surprise to people who have seen its sister papers in other cities. They’ve been using orange and white for a while:
Before: 24 Hours Ottawa Sept. 4
After: 24 Hours Ottawa Sept. 8
The new design is being implemented at all six of Quebecor’s free dailies in Canada. Just to accentuate that, the names of those six cities are in all the logos, with the home city’s name bolded. This is one of those things that sounds great to upper management who want synergy and a cohesive brand and all the other corporate buzzwords. But to local readers it only serves to re-emphasize that the big corporate bosses see these newspapers as cookie-cutter versions of each other, with a big “insert city name here” on the cover.
The papers all say they consulted readers on the new look and new features, but considering everything is the same across all six regions, are we to assume that readers in Montreal, Ottawa and Edmonton have no difference in their preferences? How convenient for Quebecor Media.
But perhaps I’m just being cynical.
Before: 24 Heures Montréal inside Sept. 4
After: 24 Heures Montréal inside Sept. 8
You can see the effects of the new design on inside pages.
Content-wise, it’s basically the same short articles and filler. The paper wants you to pay attention to all the new lifestyles features they’re putting in, but the only thing really worth noting is that the ICI insert (you’ll remember they shut that “alternative” weekly down to save money) moves from Thursdays to Fridays.
I’ll let them explain the rest:
Note in 24 Heures Sept. 8
The change also comes with a redesign of the 24 Heures website (Montreal is the only city with a full-featured website, the rest just point to digital editions of the paper). The design and content of the new website, like the old, is entirely unremarkable.
24 Heures Montréal website
The Ottawa edition was printed on higher quality paper, with fewer pages.
What bugs me about the cookie-cutter angle… there are French people in Ottawa and English people in Montreal! Distribute in both languages, please!
I do have a seriouse problem with the crossword page. I love to do this every day on the bus or at work on my breaks. The type face seems to be too small and not bold enough. I do wear glasses but I’m sure I won’t be the only one with this problem. This is an ecellent puzzle and always look forward to it every day.
I do hope this can be addressed. The answers corner is also much too small. There is enough room to accommodate these improvements in the whole section.
Thank you…….John Levesque
Unremarkable, but at least easier on the eyes.. the yellow and black was not a very good choice.
What the hell is that font set at, like 4.598pt ?
–“Montreal is the only city with a full-featured website, the rest just point to digital editions of the paper.”
Montreal also happens to be the only city where a sister publication is in a lock-out and needs articles going through the washing machine of a website and some sort of agency. Coincidence?
Oh, so they made their litter look different. I can’t wait ’till the print publications all die off. I read all my news online these days. If the newspapers disappeared I’d be happy. For one thing, there would be a lot less litter in the metro and all over town. These papers are especially heinous in winter. Shredded newspaper mixed with slush is not only ugly and gross-looking, it’s slippery and dangerous too.
I wished they had an english version as there are alot of english speaking students from outside of quebec this time of year.