News International free sheet styled to look like the Web

News International has taken inspiration from the Internet for the design of its forthcoming free sheet The London Paper, its art director Alfredo Trivino has told Design Week.

Launching on 18 September, The London Paper is a free afternoon daily newspaper aimed at 18 to 35 year olds living in the capital and aims to challenge the Evening Standard.

Trivino, now editorial art director for new projects at News International, was previously art director at the original free sheet Metro International. He says that The London Paper will move the free sheet market to a new level. ‘Its design will be fun in the tabloid sense, but also very European,’ he claims.

With a low advertising to editorial ratio of 35 to 40 per cent advertising, the quality of the visual will be ‘safe’, Trivino says, adding that the layout ‘will remind the reader of the Internet’.

Small navigation windows will guide the reader through the paper and groups of pictures will mimic the layout of websites rather than newspaper pages. ‘It will be intentionally messy; occasionally we will have too many elements on a page,’ says Trivino.

The title will not rely on the big tabloid headlines that dominate the design of Metro – the Associated Newspapers free sheet that boasts the largest circulation in the UK – but it will combine the tabloid style with a more ‘organised’ European layout. Bespoke typography will be used, with the body copy font combining ‘the modern with the classic’, says Trivino.