Brody on-line update for redesigned Guardian

Graphics star Neville Brody is working with Guardian Newspapers to redesign its Guardian Unlimited network of websites (www.guardian.co.uk).

The on-line redesign will follow the relaunch of The Guardian newspaper, which from next Monday will publish in full colour in the smaller Berliner format. Designs for the website are understood to be at the planning stage.

The Guardian is keeping its plans for the on-line network closely guarded, although a spokeswoman confirms that all the content from the redesigned newspaper will appear on Guardian Unlimited. But she says that ‘in the short-term, the design of the network of websites will not change significantly’.

As part of its £80m redesign of the newspaper, a specially-commissioned sans serif typeface – Guardian Egyptian – has been developed to replace its traditional Helvetica face. Created by type designer Paul Barnes and his collaborator Christian Schwartz, the typeface forms part of the reconfiguration of the paper by the in-house design team, led by creative editor Mark Porter.

‘The problem with sans serifs is that it’s incredibly hard to do something new and we were determined that it wouldn’t be a new Helvetica or a new Franklin Gothic,’ says Barnes. ‘The first sans serifs in the world have effectively been slab serifs or Egyptians with their slabs chopped off. I made some Egyptians with their slabs and showed them to Porter. We agreed that this is the direction we should move in.’