New York Times Facelift

The Times' new fonts; Graphic - NY Times

Typography and Times nerds: The NY Times has introduced new fonts for its headlines. When Gothamist picked up the Times, we thought there was a problem with the printing plant, but lo and behold, this change has been in the works for the past 2 years. Moving from a variety of fonts to ones in the Times Cheltenham family, assistant managing editor and design director Tom Bodkin says, "Our goals were to enhance legibility and bring a more orderly look to the pages while preserving the ability to convey a clear hierarchy of news values. We wanted to appear traditional but less old-fashioned. And we felt a need for a more robust, less spindly headline on what is often the biggest story of the day." Gothamist understands that a newspaper's desire to be legible, but there was something satisfying about the Times' old fonts...we're reading the Times, not USA Today.

Newsday on the font change. And buy your own Cheltenham fonts

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Jen Chung in Arts & Entertainment on October 21, 2003 10:23 AM

Comments [rss]

klimi

I think the Guardian/Observer also went through a facelift recently. They use an intriguing typeface.

deb

I'm with fshk. During my brief stint with typography classes in college, one of the first things we were taught was to always use sans-serif fonts for titles, as they are more easily read.

Ruidh

I like the new fonts. I picked up a copy this evening to check them out. The old fonts had a kind of an upscale ransom note quality about them.

One complaint is the lower case g. I have something of a fetish for good gs. The old headlines had superbly styled gs. The upper loop was small and nearly circular and the lower loop was nicely elongated. The lower loop on the new g is not completely connected. It offends me.

fshk

You know, I kind of like the old one better. I think the sans-serif font is more legible. That's just me.

obviously

why didn't they use Times?

bob

Que serif, que serif

West Coaster

I like the new one, even though it does feel like it should say "Lincoln Shot in Theater."

News Gothic

DEAR NEW YORK TIMES:

Eschew me at your peril!!

Lisa

Hierarchy for the lead story is obviously determined by placement on the page--top-right corner. Serif fonts are so old-fashioned, and while the Times would be weird without them, the old mix of serif and sans-serif gave it a more modern look. But now with one font it looks like it was printed in the 1800s. They should have looked towards the WSJ for facelift tips.

Coolfer

I like the old one. The less robust one. The more spindly one. I don't need big, fluffy, legible letters to get me interested in current events.

But, the new font is light years ahead of amNewYork's design. That fish wrap is plain ugly.

Frankenstein

I like how they've managed to make one of the least visually interesting newspapers even less visually interesting.

As horrid as the content of the New York Sun is, at least they have some visual flair.