TAKEAWAY: Today in Panama, the launch of two titles that have long been a part of the media landscape, La Estrella de Panama and its sister publication, El Siglo.
The front page prototypes for the new La Estrella and El Siglo
La Estrella de Panama is 165 years old and the oldest newspaper of Panama, a newspaper with a rich history, and a unique one: a newspaper in a Central American Spanish-speaking country that began as a publication in English, then French, before it switched to Spanish. The newspaper originally began in 1853 as a Spanish language translation insert of an English daily, The Panama Star, which had been formed in 1849.
A newspaper tied to that historic landmark that is the Panama Canal.
“La Estrella has accompanied our country during its most transcendental events, including the birth of our nation as an independent country in 1903, the inauguration of the Canal in 1914, and its reverting to Panamanian hands in 1999,” says Eduardo Quiros, president, Grupo Editorial El Siglo - La Estrella.
Today, it opens a new chapter in its history: a new look, a totally new rethinking and its grand entrance into the digital world via the media quartet.
At the same time, its sister publication, the tabloid-format El Siglo undergoes major changes too.
We at Garcia Media have been proud to be a part of this project. For more than a year, through our Garcia Media Latinamerica, with base in Buenos Aires, we have worked closely with the La Estrella and El Siglo team to arrive at the newspapers that readers will see today.
For us, it all began with an invitation extended from Juan Luis Correa, corporate vice president, Grupo Wisa, for us to join them in creating La Estrella and El Siglo of the future.
“We wish to innovate and to redesign ourselves,” Juan Luis wrote me at the time.
In meetings and workshops I was joined by our senior art directors Rodrigo Fino and Paula Ripoll, to create the look that you see today: modern, easy to navigate, and linked visually and through the brand to the digital platforms. We worked closely with La Estrella art director Arturo Blas.
Here is how Henry Ávila Herrera, executive vice president and general manager of La Estrella and El Siglo, sees the changes:
“The launching of our Media Quartet project places us at the vanguard of all media communication in Panama and redefines in a modern way our institutional vision, which is based on a rich and extensive journalistic tradition. This relaunch demonstrates our great capacity to reinvent ourselves and go in search of new audiences and marketing niche, with emphasis on the way we will communicate in the future.”
He adds:
“Without a doubt, this places us at La Estrella and El Siglo at a competitive advantage. We have set as our goal for the next two years to place ourselves as the second print medium and absolute leader for mobile devices, where we are already certified as the number one. This is an opportunity to rewrite history and change the future of our editorial group within the regional and local context.”
The specifics
The logos—-
El Siglo: old and new logo
Both newspapers’ managers decided that it was time to introduce a new logo with the relaunch.
We, as always, sought inspiration in the past, starting with La Estrella’s early history. IN the past few years, the La Estrella logo had been streamlined and simplified, a look that we thought did not make it distinctive and failed to respect the rich traditions of this Central American daily.
Rodrigo and Paula took to the task of reviewing the old logos and we all sketched ways in which they could be revitalized, to adapt to the needs of the digital platforms as well.
Follow the sequence here, where you see what was there at the start of the newspaper’s history and the present.
For El Siglo, a much younger newspaper, it was a matter of creating a more contemporary logo.
The pages
For the design of the newspapers: simplicity was our key. Create a sense of hierarchy, and give each page good visuals.
At the same time we had to create a totally different mentality for the building of pages within the newsroom. Until this relaunch, pages could have a large element at the bottom, with smaller headlines or images at the top, resting the page a sense of hierarchy. Our internal discussions and training, and the sample pages we created (as seen in prototypes here), lead to a Center of Visual Impact on each page, with a definitive lead story. These are elements that should help readers travel through the newspapers.
The digital
With today’s relaunch, La Estrella and El Siglo introduce a responsive website and a first version of an app. On March 28, there will be a more finalized app version.
Our Garcia Media team of Mario Garcia Jr and Reed Reibstein worked closely with La Estrella digital editor, Oskar Ortiz and art director Arturo Blas on the creation and design of the various digital platforms.
Guillermo Diaz de Leon, of OneLatAm, a Miami-based content solutions firm that collaborated in the project, had this to say:
“There is no end to the disruption caused by the digital revolution as it sweeps forward. Traditional media outlets, whether they have become more savvy or more desperate, are responding by ringing the change, in the latest example, La Estrella de Panama y El Siglo have announced the launch of new online ventures, websites and mobile apps; innovation is a natural extension of journalism, that allows all kind of audiences, a quick and useful way to keep up with the news” - “One Latam Inc., offering advanced technology solutions that will push our clients to be leaders and innovators in their field, resulting in new and increased sources of revenue”
An invitation to the launch party in Panama:
TheMarioBlog post # 1454