18.Feb.2007 Arabic newspaper design: Al-Hayat, London

To continue with the newspaper series, we now jump outside of Lebanon to the London based Al-Hayat newspaper. It is arguably the one with the highest number of circulation amongst all Arab newspapers and I’ve seen copies of it all over Europe.

Fonts: The styles used are mainstream conventional typefaces. The headline font uses the thick baseline to add boldness, but the result is uninspiring. It also feels a bit cold and unwelcoming. It might be my personal impression, but it never makes me to want to pick it up.

Layout: The layout is ok. Uncluttered and direct to the point. Still, if you compare it to the Annahar example, you can see that the latter uses the page space in a more effective manner. Also, they need wider margins, and that the black line in the middle is disturbing.

Masthead: The logo in itself is quite interesting, especially with the middle swash (also like Annahar). I’m not sure that the stylization of the globe with a Fatha on top of it is appropriate, or the 2 colored boxes on each side of it.

Overall impression: This is a conventional design that could have been better executed. It reminds of Annahar but is of a less effective design quality. The choice of imagery is as important as the fonts, and the example shown is not exactly eye-grabbing photography.