Feel like I need to post more about tomorrow’s launch of the Guardian Berliner in order to hold on to my front page (fifth result, no less) in Google.com for “Guardian Berliner”, especially as it seems to be the main method by which people are finding me at the moment.

It’s worth reading Victor Keegan’s blog about the making of the first edition of the new paper, not least for more information about the changes. I’ve just learned that there will be a daily leader column entitled “in praise of”, and that tomorrow’s will be about the Proms.

But, on the crucial matter of the font, there’s bad news. The editor lets us know that “bold black sans serif headlines will have made way for a more restrained serif headline font.” Now I’m apprehensive…

Only the Guardian would have an entire article about the font used:

Almost every other British newspaper still bases its design on one serif and one sans serif font.

Instead, Barnes and Schwartz built a “family” with 96 members, ranging from a classic Egyptian to a sans serif italic, and at numerous different weights. Even the £ signs and other special characters were redesigned. Headlines will range in size from 20 to 60 points - there are 72pts to the inch - but will tend to be smaller than at present. After weeks of discussion, the design team settled on an 8pt body font for news pages - as now - with slightly wider vertical spacing, at 9.5pt. It soaks up words, but remains legible.

Looking at the font in the advert on this page and masthead on this page, the thing that leaps out at me is the archaic-looking lower case “g”, shaped like a figure 8. It just seems an odd decision, especially as that “g” is so important to the new brand.

Skuds is apprehensive about the size more than the font: he’d like it to be smaller.

I think there’s an interesting point about the move to a more “European” format, to do with the Guardian’s longstanding tradition of trying to look across the Channel for inspiration rather than across the Atlantic.

If you’d like to see what the new front page will look like, there’s an image at Wikipedia, and a pdf on the Guardian’s own site.

UPDATE: just found an interesting article about the change at the Press Gazette.