TAKEAWAY: We knew it from experience, but now those guys at Tolerans, Sweden’s newspaper stitching company, have taken a survey to prove it: stitches do make a difference.
Stitched papers: easier to use
To stitch or not to stitch.
That is the question for many publishers of compact size newspapers worldwide. Do the stitches really make a difference?
We have always said that it does, since a paper that is held together is easier to manage.
Of course, there will always be those who will say that with stitching there is no way to share the newspaper. Well, one can sectionalize a tabloid, so individual sections are stitched and can be shared.
Now the guys at Sweden’s Tolerans, one of the world’s best known stitching companies, has conducted a study in the UK. Charlotte Banning, Tolerans’ marketing director, shares the results with us:
The study: Conducted in January 2011 in a coffee shop in the UK. A total of 131 readers participated: 53 % women, 47 % men; various age groups represented.
Participants were given a stitched and an unstitched variant of the same newspaper, and were asked to compare the two.
The results: A majority of the respondents preferred the stitched newspaper. The reasons given: the newspaper was kept together and wasn’t messed up. The respondents said that the stitched newspaper looked clean, neat and tidy. They said that the stitched newspaper was easier to read. More than 80% considered stitching to be “very important”.
In terms of age group, the study found out that more than two thirds of the respondents above 30 years of age preferred the stitched newspaper compared to the unstitched.
The survey also showed that women seem to prefer stitched newspapers more than men .
And for those publishers interested in stitching for a broadsheet format newspaper. Good news from the Tolerans laboratory. CEO Jan Melin tells me that they are conducting experiments with stitchers for the broadsheets, and so far with much success. We will update you about this development here in TheMarioBlog.
Those interested in more information about this study can contact Charlotte Banning directly at Tolerans, http://www.tolerans.com/. Or write Charlotte at info@tolerans.com .
….and the stitched best designed newspaper in the world is here
Front page from Portugal’s i——only winner in SND’s Best Designed in the World category.
Many qualities of good design, visuals, content flow helped Portugal’s “i” to become the best designed newspaper in the world, according to the SND Contest. But, it also helped, say the judges, that it was perfectly stitched.
Here is their statement about that fact:
It’s smaller than most tabloids (250 x 345 mm or 9 ¾” x 13 5/8” with the trim) and it is saddle-stitched, so it holds together like a magazine. Readers can easily fold pages back, navigate without difficulty and — perhaps — concentrate without the distractions encountered with larger, unbound formats.
For complete story from SND:
http://www.snd.org/2011/02/snd32i/
Our congratulations to the creative team and editors of “i”.