Project nostalgia: the rethinking Argentina’s La Nueva Provincia
TAKEAWAY: Thirty four years after my first redesign for La Nueva Provincia, I am back in Bahia Blanca, Argentina, as we start what will be LNP’s journey into its future.
How our redesign of La Nueva Provincia looked in 1979: A Monday special for Sports: more features, more visual presentation, a new concept for the time
It was 34 years ago that I first set foot in this quaint city of Bahia Blanca, home to the Argentinean navy. It was also my first project outside of the United States.
That is why I call this project that starts today Project Nostalgia: an emotional and fascinating romp revisiting what we did at that time, but enthusiastically taking this iconic regional newspaper towards the future.
La Nueva Provincia is a family owned newspaper that has been in the hands of the Massot family for three generations. During my first incursion here I worked with the then publisher, the late Diana Julio de Massot, and project leader, her son Federico Massot, a bright and promising journalist whose life was cut short when he died from leukemia, still in his 30s. Now Federico’s two brothers, Alejandro and Vicente, are the newspaper’s publishers and they are the project leaders guarding their newspaper’s legacy, while projecting it into the digital era, and the media quartet concept.
So, as you can imagine, this is a significant project. It is one which will put me face to face with the ideas and concepts that I promoted in 1979, when, as a young professor at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, I ventured into my first project outside the United States.
That was then, this is now
Every step we take this week, as we conduct a workshop to shake La Nueva Provincia to its rich and historic foundation, will be a reminder of my thought processes when I first worked here, when the newspaper was produced without the benefit of computers.
We are ready to look at everything, from typography to page architecture to storytelling and color palettes.
It will be a fascinating exercise, a team effort that will bring together some of those with whom I worked before, along with many new faces of journalists/designers who were not even born in 1979.
Most importantly, for me, personally, a tour de force, a face to face with a project from the past, a mano a mano with my own perceptions then and now. My mantra has always been: respect and salute the past, but hold on fast to the hand of the future and allow it to move you forward.
My mantra should serve me well this week here in Bahia Blanca.
I will continue to write about my experiences with La Nueva Provincia the rest of this week.
The team
Our Garcia Media Latinamerica team will accompany me on the La Nueva Provincia project: Rodrigo Fino and Paula Ripoll, senior art directors, will lead the charge.
For our blog post on my initial work with La Nueva Provincia:
http://garciamedia.com/blog/articles/40_years_40_lessons_7._abroad
Where’s Mario until March 21, 2013?
Mario’s upcoming speaking engagements
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