Folkebladet: A new common section of three Danish local dailies

New Year’s Day 2012 was a Sunday. However, in the editorial departments of Vejle Amts Folkeblad, Fredericia Dagblad, and Horsens Folkeblad, the day felt nothing like a holiday … because on Monday 2 January, the three Danish local dailies launched their new common B-section under the name of Folkebladet.
Ribergaard & Munk designed the new publication, working with Horsens Folkeblad’s editor-in-chief, Sven Groenborg, and Folkebladet’s editor Morten Guldberg.
The typographical toolbox was created by New York-based Christian Schwartz. Guardian Sans, originally made for The Guardian of London, is used for headlines, captions, pullout quotes, etc. The body type, Publico, is also used in Horsens Folkeblad - which, by the way, changed its A-section to tabloid format as part of the operation.
Folkebladet’s nameplate, combining the two typefaces, was created by Ole Munk. The logotype has been rotated 90 degrees in order to facilitate a more varied use of the newshole.

Smålänningen: 90 years and reborn

Tuesday 15 November 2011, a new era began at Smålänningen, published in Ljungby (pop 27,000) in southern Sweden.
Three weeks prior to its 90-years birthday, the local daily launched a new design, created by Ribergaard & Munk with an in-house workgroup led by executive editor Anita Johansson and night editor Anna-Karolina Persson. Anna took care of implementing the new design in NewsPilot, Smålänningen’s editorial system.
Judging by the initial readers’ responses, the change has been well received. Anita Johansson:
”I was a bit worried that this redesign might imply a change too radical - but even though our new design is indeed very different from the old one, Ribergaard & Munk have succeeded in creating a look which is genuinely Smålänningen.”
Ole Munk designed the new nameplate which is based on Peter Bilak’s typeface Greta, one of two typefaces forming the design basis for all the Hallpressen newspapers which have been redesigned or created since Ribergaard & Munk started working with the Smålands-Tidningen redesign in 2008.

Skövde Nyheter: Now, a website

In April 2011, the Swedish newspaper Skövde Nyheter was reborn as a free weekly. As the response from readers and advertisers has been extremely positive, the VGT publishing corporation decided to take the next step and make the newspaper available every minute of the week – as a website.
Skovdenyheter.se launched 10 November 2011.
Publisher Ronny Karlsson: ”Our aim is to become Skövde’s number one website. The obvious choice if you wish to know what is going on in the city”.
Maj Ribergaard, Ole Munk, and Allan Kaas designed the new website. With the purpose of reinforcing the Skövde Nyheter brand, we have maximized the recognition between the print og web editions.
You can read about the launch of Skovdenyheter.se (in Swedish) at Medievarlden.se.
web design

Munkytalk

Ole Munk has initiated a new blog on which he will, from time to time, comment on visual communication and publication design. Language will depend on the subject.
Read the first Munkytalk blogposts here.

NORDJYSKE business section, etc.

On Tuesday 11 October, the Danish regional daily Nordjyske Stiftstidende launched their new business pages, named Erhvervsliv (business life). The design is by Ribergaard & Munk who also helped Nordjyske make the transition into tabloid format in 2008.
As the new business pages are an integrated part of the first section of the paper, a key element of our assignment was the creation of a strong opening page which will clearly distinguish the business section from the regular news pages.
Earlier this year, Ribergaard & Munk helped create the new design for the relaunch of Nordjyske’s three weekend sections. Clarifying the distinction between the Friday CULTURE section, Saturday’s FRIII and the WEEKEND section published on Sundays – within the framework of the typographical toolbox which we introduced with our Nordjyske redesign in 2008 – was the prime object of this design assignment.
Working with an in-house group led by AME Jørgen laCour-Harbo, we also created a new structure for the daily news pages with redesigned headers and a more consistent use of the SAXOTECH page geometries.
newspaper design

Redesign: NORDJYSKE weekly papers

Ribergaard & Munk created a new common design for the 25 weeklies published by the Danish NORDJYSKE corporation.
The design concept includes new rules for placing ads – allowing for a clearer presentation of both commercial and editorial content – as well as new headline faces (Guardian Egyptian).
Some of the titles, like Hobro Avis, also got new logotypes, designed by Maj Ribergaard, while others kept their original nameplate or some adjusted version of it.
All changes were implemented, both technically and in terms of internal education, by Nordjyske AME Joergen laCour-Harbo.

Online education

Maj Ribergaard and Ole Munk are content providers for a new educational portal covering 7th—10th grade Danish language, literature and media. The portal was created by the Danish internet publishing company Clio Online.
Our initial contributions were text and illustrations for the topics communication, images, photography, press photography og newspaper layout.

Workshops

• 11-13 October 2010, we ran our popular Visuals & Words quick course with participants from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
The next Visuals & Words course will be 26-28 March 2012. Please contact us for more information.
• 4 November 2011, Ole Munk was the keynote speaker at a one-day workshop arranged by Hallandsposten, based in Halmstad, Sweden. Ole’s 90-min presentation, named The Future of the Local Daily, contained examples of innovative and successful moves within local journalism on a national and international level - on paper, web, and tablet/iPad.
Since 2003, Ribergaard & Munk have been working with Hallandsposten and contributed to the gradual development of the design and visual presentation of the Swedish morning daily, including its transition to tabloid format in 2007 and the design coordination with Hallands Nyheter two years later.
• The new UPDATE Design & Visual Communication training package has been put together by Maj Ribergaard and Ole Munk. The first three quick courses - The Basic Steps of Publication Design, Magazine and Feature Layout, and Frontpages That Work ran in March, September, and November 2010.
Magazine and Feature Layout ran for the second time 21-23 September 2011.
More information on Update.dk.
• Ole Munk ran a visual journalism workshop at the The Norwegian Institute of Journalism in Fredrikstad, Norway, 14-16 June 2011.
• Together with David Nicolas Hopmann, PhD at the University of Southern Denmark, Ole Munk organized a study trip to Germany and the Netherlands 14-18 March 2011 for the Danish journalists’ further education program, UPDATE. Our theme for this trip was ”Print with success” and the group visited newspapers and magazines capable of increasing readership in difficult times – trying to cast a light on what might be done to turn the tide.
• 6 January 2011, Maj Ribergaard ran a frontpage workshop with nine participants at the Danish local daily Fyns Amts Avis which adopted the tabloid format in 2010. Executive editor Soeren S Nielsen explains: ”Like many other papers, we are now using layout templates which are rational and speed up the process of producing pages. The risk is, however, that these pages - and page 1 in particular - start looking the same every day. We were looking for methods to break the lurking routine. Maj Ribergaard came to us as an educator and inspirer with loads of relevant examples plus hands-on assignments. It was a very enjoyable and enlightening day.”
• Ole Munk ran a newspaper design workshop 17-18 June 2010 in St Petersburg, Russia, arranged by RPI (the Regional Press Institute). The participants were page designers from 22 newspapers in Northwestern Russia.

workshops

The return of Skövde Nyheter

Skövde Nyheter folded in December 2007 but on Thursday 14 April, 2011, the Swedish local paper made a comeback as a free weekly, published by Västgöta Tidningar (a division of Hallpressen).
The new SN was designed by Ribergaard & Munk working with VGT editor-in-chief Ronny Karlsson and SN copy editor Henrik Svensson.
Typographically, Skövde Nyheter is making use of the same Greta/Flama toolbox as the rest of the Hallpressen titles.
In SN, however, Flama Slab enjoys a prominent role. The punchy slab serif also formed the basis for the new SN logo which was created by Ole Munk.
More info on Skövde Nyheter (in Swedish) at Medievärlden.

Midtjyllands Avis becomes a tabloid

The Danish local daily Midtjyllands Avis, published in Silkeborg with a circulation of 13,000, changed from broadsheet to tabloid format Thursday 14 April 2011. The relaunch includes a new design which was created by executive editor Helmer Jakobsen, working with Ole Munk as the consultant, on typography in particular.
The new typefaces in Midtjyllands Avis are Charter – used for body text – and Corpid for headlines, captions, fact boxes and additional type.
Ole Munk established a new colour policy and designed a system for page navigation based on the typeface Dax – just like the nameplate which also underwent minor adjustments.

Jönköpings-Posten redesigned

Tuesday 12 April 2011, the 146-year-old Swedish daily Jönköpings-Posten (circ 36,000) launched a new design, created by Ribergaard & Munk with an in-house project team led by editor-in-chief Mats Ottosson.
More contrast will be introduced on the pages of the new JP, partly through the new typography (based on Greta and Flama, like the other titles of the Hallpressen corporation) and partly by keeping more rigid control of headline sizes and story counts. At the same time, an effort was made to retain the light, spacious layout which has since long ago characterized this newspaper.
Mats Ottosson: ”Jönköpings-Posten has become more modern, more distinct, and easier to navigate”.
In Wednesday’s paper, Mats also mentioned the fact that more pages are devoted to local news, as well as to local culture and debate.
Ole Munk designed a new version of the historic JP nameplate.

A new design for Värnamo Nyheter

One more step in Ribergaard & Munk’s design work for Hallpressen was taken 24 February 2011 when the second-biggest newspaper of this Swedish media corporation launched in a brand new costume.
Even though Värnamo Nyheter follows the same typographical guidelines as its brother/sister publications, this redesign was a special assignment as the VN frontpage is by tradition dominated by advertising.
With the ambition of generating more appeal in the newsstand, we have tried to add a bit of newsiness by squeezing in a promo area above the nameplate. Still however, the VN page 3 works as an alternative frontpage.
The new VN look is based on the design which we created for the free tabloid Värnamo Nyheter Mitt i veckan (Värnamo News Midweek) - but as the main paper is still published in broadsheet format, numerous adjustments and additions had to be made.

From web to print in Jönköping

Ribergaard & Munk created the design for a new free magazine which will be published in the Swedish city of Jönköping (125 000 inhabitants).
35 000 copies of JnyttXtra will be printed once a month by the website Jnytt.se, which has, over a period of just five years, become the dominant website of this region. JnyttXtra #1 hit the streets 28 January 2011.
You can flip through the latest issue here.
The Hallpressen media corporation is behind Jnytt.se and JnyttXtra and we based the design of the new magazine on the two typeface families (Greta and Flama) which Ribergaard & Munk have introduced in other Hallpressen publications - but this time used quite differently.
From a designer’s point of view, it was an interesting exercise to try providing the new magazine with its own completely unique and modern look, using the same typographical toolbox with which we have created more ”normal” newspaper typography.
JnyttXtra was amlng the nominees for the Swedish Design Award (Svenska Designpriset) 2011.

Design awards for Kommunen

The Danish newspaper Kommunen - which was redesigned in 2009 by Ribergaard & Munk - won a bronze award in the redesign category of the 2010 Best of Scandinavian News Design contest.
An excerpt from the jury comments:
”Kommunen used to look pretty messy and more or less anonymous. It has now metamorphozed into an exclusive-looking weekly with a young and rather feminine visual profile”.
This is Kommunen’s second design award within a year. In June 2010, the redesigned paper won the Danish Bording Graphic Design Award, one of the annual awards from the Association of the Danish Specialized Press.
Kommunen’s readers can be found among decision makers in the Danish society, mainly in the local municipalities (mayors, council members, chief executives, etc).
For the first time in a Danish publication, the new Kommunen design introduces the Guardian Egyptian typeface, designed by Christian Schwartz – in combination with Corpid, designed by Lucas de Groot.
Click here to download a pdf version of the first issue which hit town halls all over Denmark October 1, 2009.
Ribergaard & Munk also created the corporate identity program for the new publishing company, a design which was based on the typography and colour scheme of the newspaper.
corporate identity

Columns and reviews

The bi-weekly magazine of the Danish Journalists’ Union, Journalisten, is publishing website design reviews, written by Ole Munk. Once a month, Ole Munk reviews a media website, focusing on architecture, design, and functionality.
In his latest review, published in Journalisten #14/2011, Ole compared the website of the Danish national TV and radio broadcasting corporation, DR.dk, to the corresponding British, Swedish, and Norwegian sites.
If you understand Danish, you can read Ole Munk’s review here.

Gjengangeren continues to grow

At a time when many newspapers struggle in order to survive, the Norwegian daily Gjengangeren - published in Horten - is enjoying a continuous rise in circulation. Parallel to Maj Ribergaard’s redesign which was introduced to the public in January 2008, Gjengangeren managed to sharpen its news profile and reinforce its relations to the local community.
The response from the readers has been extremely positive. In 2009, Gjengangeren had its highest circulation figures ever (6,285) as well as a higher circulation rise than all other Norwegian local papers, and for the second year in a row, the 159-year-old paper was top scorer in a reader survey among all newspapers in the Edda Media corporation.
”There is no doubt that our design cooperation with Ribergaard & Munk has been one of the reasons for our success. The new design lifted the product, gave it a modern look, and communicates our profile - as well as our news content - much more clearly”, now former editor-in-chief Jan-Erik Hvidsten said in 2009. Well, thanks … and congratulations!

Infographics

During the fall of 2010, Ole Munk worked as an infographics consultant for the Danish free daily URBAN. The aim of this project was to develop and refine the paper’s use of infographics. Once a week, with the common headline URBAN INFO, the paper presents an infographical approach to a news topic over two pages. Ole Munk had a dialogue with the graphic reporters while the work was in progress and delivered feedback on the results.
18-20 November 2009, Ole Munk was giving lectures at an infographics workshop at the Augsburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany, with 12 students from the university and from the Danish Design School. Ole worked with university professor Michael Stoll who put his visual documentation of the event on Flickr. Have a look.
Ribmunk Graphics is the name of Ribergaard & Munk’s new infographics service. Contact us on mail@ribmunk.dk.
We produce graphics-while-you-wait (although the bigger the assignment, the longer you’ll have to wait).
Based on our experience from producing graphics at papers such as Politiken, Jyllands-Posten (JP Copenhagen), and Dagens Nyheter, the graphics we will deliver are of the kind which, we believe, have the strongest communicative effect. That means simple - aimed at being immediately understood.

Publication checks at Samvirke and Ugeskrift for Laeger

Ribergaard & Munk have carried out a publication check at the monthly magazine Samvirke, Denmark’s biggest and most widely read magazine, published by FDB (owner of COOP Denmark).
Maj Ribergaard presented the result at Samvirke’s staff conference Tuesday 28 April 2009.
Based on an R&M publication check, the Danish weekly Ugeskrift for Laeger (Journal of The Danish Medical Association) created a brand new front page concept over the first months of 2009 with Ribergaard & Munk as consultants. Now the journal has been launched with a new format and a sharper, more news-oriented editorial profile.
publication check

Book on newspaper layout and editing, 3rd edition

Ole Munk and Maj Ribergårds educational book on newspaper layout and editing has been revised and published in its third edition, including examples of all the latest design developments of the dynamic Danish newspaper industry.
To be purchased from Dansklaererforeningens Forlag (but the language is, still, Danish).