The Toronto Star is an institution in Toronto, many families get it delivered to their home and you can find it on almost every street corner in a blue vending box. It really caters to all the communities in the larger GTA area and focuses on the people and their situations in those neighbourhoods. (Rather than other newspapers which write stories with a business slant.) It is this attention that makes it so popular to the everyday family.
Client
Client Bio
The third largest newspaper in North America and Canada’s largest daily newspaper.
Personal History
I started out at the Star as an artist. I was introduced to the creative director, Jimmy Somerville by a Maclean’s old creative director, Courtland Shakespeare, who hired me partly because they were about buy these new computer systems called Macs and no one else knew how to use them. To be fair, the Macs were at that time fringe devices and we were still cutting rubyliths, air brushing photos and heavily relying on Letraset for page design. But slowly wandering into a new era, we started to use a wonderful new application called MacDraw (which was the big application at that time) for charts, maps and graphs. And overnight these graphics rose to a new popularity.
Objective
To redesign the Toronto Star, so that it was a more enjoyable read and to ultimately gain market share.
Noteworthy
Balancing the needs of many insiders, the task, albeit difficult, was completed after almost one year of work. The newly designed newspaper was proudly launched with much fanfare and was printed in the brand new production facility, The Toronto Star Press Centre in Vaughan, just north of Toronto. I worked closely with Roger Black and the Star’s Head Creative Director Keith Branscombe who initiated the redesign.