TAKEAWAY: After 34 years since my first visit here, I am back in Bahia Blanca helping the team of the iconic regional Argentine daily, La Nueva Provincia, to rethink itself to fit into the media quartet landscape of 2013 and beyond. It is a chance to reflect pensively on what was and to move swiftly forward with what will be.
Front pages of the current La Nueva Provincia: all aspects of the design will be reviewed in this Project Nostalgia starting this week.
An evening run thru Bahia Blanca: getting reacquainted with a city I last visited 34 years ago
It is, indeed, a rare opportunity for any professional—-not just designers—-to be able to come face to face with a project completed more than three decades ago. There is, of course, the element of nostalgia. In the case of La Nueva Provincia, I find myself asking about many of the wonderful staffers whom I met in 1979, always afraid to hear that they are no longer with us.
I was a young professor at **Syracuse Universit**y when I first was tapped by the late editor Federico Massot, to pay a visit to his newspaper in this port city, home to the Argentine navy. Federico had attended an American Press Institute session I had conducted, and in which I had done thorough critiques for all of the newspapers of members in attendance.
I remember that La Nueva Provincia was the only Spanish language newspaper in the group of about 36, mostly dailies, whose editors were attending the API session. It gave me a chance to review a newspaper in my mother tongue.
La Nueva Provincia that I critiqued was black and white, rather bold, disorganized in its visual presentation, sporting dozens of different logos and column sigs, a result of the legacy syndrome. The typography was a very poorly utilized Bodoni, spaced out, lacking in elegance, and, in my view, not an official version of the iconic newspaper font. I told Federico all of this during the critique.
“I know, I know,“ said the young editor, one of three brothers who, with their mother, Diana Julio de Massot, ran this family owned newspaper. Without missing a beat, Federico then said:
“How quickly can you get to see us in Argentina?“
Six weeks later I made my entrance into the building of La Nueva Provincia, a picture perfect regional newspaper environment, with wooden desks and crucifixes in view everywhere, a cozy place that resembled a family home, which, indeed, it was. The La Nueva Provincia team was family, still is.
Federico died at the age of 40. Mrs. Massot died years later.
Now, I find myself working with Vicente and Alejandro Massot, who carry the family tradition and are ready to take La Nueva Provincia to our new and media quartet oriented world.
“We are ready for the challenge,“ Vicente, who is publisher/editor, told me during lunch Monday. “Like newspapers all around the world, we have seen a decline of our print product consumption, but a fast rise in the use of digital by our readers.“
La Nueva Provincia was my first newspaper project outside of The United States.
Now, 34 years and 108 countries later, I find myself here, taking a look at La Nueva Provincia that still wears some of the clothes we designed for it in 1979. Some still serves it well.
Some should have been sunset years ago. But this is not time for contemplating what was. This is the kick off week where we discuss in depth what can be.
Personally, I am thinking much about how we designed newspapers in the late 1970s, and realizing that more than three decades, it seems like a century of change has taken place.
Today I have spent time with the old La Nueva Provincia, putting my thoughts into two categories:
What was I thinking?
Here’s an idea that still works today
It is a thoughtful, reflective process that helps me understand the amazing transformations of our industry over three decades, not to mention my own.
Tomorrow in the blog I will expand on the two thoughts above.
Right now, it is time for the workshop, for show and tell, for discussing the little details but, more importantly, the larger picture.
What will La Nueva Provincia of the next three decades be like?
We have some catching up to do here.
Previously about La Nueva Provincia in the blog:
For our blog post on my initial work with La Nueva Provincia:
http://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_7._abroad
Project Nostalgia: The rethinking of Argentina’s La Nueva Provincia
Where’s Mario until March 21, 2013?
Mario’s upcoming speaking engagements
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