USA TODAY unveiled last week a comprehensive redesign of all its platforms. The undertaking a highly complex project – massive in scale and delivered and presented at the same time. A stunning achievement in its own right that when paired with the quality and detail of the work becomes breathtaking. Since 1982 USA TODAY has been a mainstay for news in America, whose 1.8 million daily circulation is second only to the Wall Street Journal. Owned by Gannett, it rightly calls itself  a “multiplatform news and information media company” when you factor in USATODAY.com which gets traffic hovering just shy of 7 million daily readers. Wolff Olins handled the project that covered the entire USA TODAY landscape including  ”a refresh of their masterbrand logo, full redesign of the newspaper, creation of a flexible brand system, [and] content strategy and launch advertising.” What they achieved is nothing short of the reinvention of the modern American newspaper. Although the digital properties of USA TODAY are highly successful, the printed newspaper is the largest revenue source for the company. Reinvestment and reinvention in the printed product was an absolute imperative. Interviewed by Armin Vit of Underconstruction.com, the Wollf Olins team had this to say:

Despite the success of USA TODAY’s iPad app, the printed product is still by far and away the largest footprint for the brand and the largest revenue-earner for the business. Digital advertising is relatively cheap compared to print so even though digital advertising is growing and print advertising is declining, the incremental revenue is not yet there. So from a pure business sense, investing in the paper was imperative. But more than that, all the research we looked at told us that people still love newspapers. News consumption is not about platform loyalty. People graze their news across multiple platforms throughout the day and in different situations. The desire for news content to serve varying combinations of immediacy, convenience, utility, learning and entertainment are driving choice of both source and platform. Printed newspapers will continue to be one of several platforms in the news consumption ecosystem. We were working to help place the USA TODAY brand across this whole ecosystem. Modernizing the printed product was an important part of this. — Kate Nielsen (project lead) and Lisa Smith (design director)

Master Brand and Section Logos

Icon Sets

Custom Font: Futura Today

Sections

Website

www.beta.usatoday.com

- Bradley Fitzhenry, Brand Manager MJR Creative Group