Twenty-five year evolution of the brand
Design has always played a prominent role in presenting the local news; the first 25 years of the faces of The Observer
March 30, 1996
ࢂ Our origin issue was created at the University of Waterloo Imprint office. The logo featured Casablanca Antique font, but many readers saw two heads facing outwards in the lett 'O'. Nope, it was just a font.
January 18, 1997
ࢂ Not long after we started to publish, the Kitchener This Week paper folded. We borrowed their green colour and a few design elements. We bumped up our circulation and started delivering the paper with The Record.
July 26, 1997
ࢂ Local graphic artist Ron Letkeman approached us with a mockup design of a new logo using Bauer Bodoni font and a new newspaper layout. This was the beginning of printing full-colour pages every week, the first local paper to lead the way.
September 5, 1998
ࢂ Blue and red colour was introduced to the logo. Much research was compiled before finalizing the colour. Both colours were deemed to present a professional timeless appeal which is what we were going for. This palette was maintained throughout the years.
September 2, 2000
ࢂ Dropshadows were introduced in Photoshop ... ugh. We weren't alone over-using this feature. Big bold and chunky was the theme of this redesign. The Observer was online and wanted to identify as Canadian so introduced the maple leaf into our logo.
September 1, 2001
ࢂ A minor tweak to the design after a year of heavy dropshadow. This was the last design to feature a price. We assigned a value because free implied the paper had no value - we know that's not true. Some local stores sold them and kept the money for themselves.
October 5, 2002
ࢂ Teasers looked great and highlighted stories within the paper. These little cut-out ones were a pain and designers spent hours cutting out images and rebuilding body parts that were out of the shot. This design survived five years without a tweak.
February 3, 2007
ࢂ Bold, blue, grey and chevrons introduced. We used a condensed version of Bauer Bodoni and put a solid fill of red in the maple leaf. We dropped Woolwich from Observer as we had extended coverage to Wellesley township residents.
February 6, 2010
ࢂ Matthew French was a staff graphic designer who did a complete redesign of the Observer by himself. The first and only time. No surprise to us that Matthew heads up the graphics dept. at the Globe and Mail. We introduced a masthead ad spot which has been a sell-out since.
March 3, 2012
ࢂ This redesign was based around fonts. Gotham and Tiempos were paired, the white in the logo brightened up the nameplate. Tiempos was sourced from a boutique font bureau in New York City. Seven years with this design is the longest run.
February 7, 2019
ࢂ Sometimes less is more. A little more whitespace is always a good thing. We reintroduced weekend weather again (last ǵ͝ڂ ԆԐԐԎԼհ ڂ ڂ͝ǵ ɟˍˍڂ ڂ͝ǵ gave our teaser story a more prominent feature on the cover. Gotham replaced by Proxima Nova font.
October 8, 2020
ࢂ A solid blue nameplate was missed and returned as part of the iconic design element of the Observer brand. Tiempos is paired with Inter font which is also the font displayed at www.observerxtra. com. A redesign of the website accompanied this design.