Crossing over into the the western part of the Arab world, we have Al-Fadjr newspaper. It seems that the Algerians like their newspapers to have more color than what we are used to in Lebanon. I’ll show another Algerian paper tomorrow. Same thing. Am I being prejudiced here? There aren’t many newspapers that post pdf’s. If you are Algerian and know of an interesting newspaper design, please email me a scan. Thanks!
Fonts: Nothing new here, bu note the Lam.Mim.Kheh ligature in the second line of the subheading. Quite strange. Haven’t seen this before. It’s quite playful but probably more appropriate in a different setting. It’s actually quite interesting to use on logos.
Layout: Everything is in a box. And so much color. Do we need so much color on a newspaper? How much does the flashiness of the design of a newspaper help in its function? It seems to me that a newspaper should be picked up because of its editorial quality, and that the design is only a tool to get this information to the reader as comfortably as possible. Magazines are a different story. Those seem to be more about eye candy and colorful pictures.
Masthead: Interesting Feh. I’m not sure I understand why there’s a B/W gradiant underneath the text.
Overall impression: The design looks like it was done by someone who had just started learning Illustrator, and was thrilled to discover the gradiant tool. I wonder if this is printed on normal newspaper sheets or on glossy and glaringly white paper.