Newspaper & Mailroom

Journal du Dimanche: a new format, a new approach

Tuesday 08. March 2011 - On Sunday 6 March, Journal du Dimanche is getting a new look.

A new “large tabloid” format
This new format is suited to modern lifestyles and has become the choice of numerous publications over time, including El Pais, The Times, The Wall Street Journal Europe and more. The new JDD will have the same format throughout France and will offer readers up to 64 pages, all with four-colour printing. This marks the second time in its history that the JDD has changed its format (the first was in 1999, with the changeover from a broadsheet to the Berliner format).
A new layout
The new layout was conceived by the London-based designer Mark Potter (The Guardian and Courrier International). It fulfils three objectives by providing a more comfortable reading experience, revising and updating the section headings, and maintaining the spirit of the JDD in a new format.
An enhanced editorial offering
The new JDD is organized into three sections:
The latest news for Sunday.
An in-depth review of the week’s events, featuring investigations, interviews, profiles and longer reporting pieces.
A new “Sunday” section that brings together the major weekend sections: books and culture, leisure, lifestyles and sports. For readers in the Paris region, this new section also includes the Paris Notebook.
The launch is being backed by a promotional campaign (print media, radio, display advertising and Internet) with a new tagline (“C’est d’abord dans le JDD”), featuring the latest newsworthy personalities along with the writers at the heart of the Journal du Dimanche (Carlos Ghosn, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Anne Roumanoff, Philippe Sollers and the rest).
To coincide with the new format, changes are underway at www.lejdd.fr as well, with a revamped home page and quicker access to information. In addition, the continuous news site is beefing up its political coverage.
Says Olivier Jay, editorial director of the JDD, “This new redesign, which has been in the works for nearly a year, marks an important step for the JDD, an intellectual newspaper with broad appeal that occupies a special niche in France’s print media. We’ve significantly refashioned our editorial offering as we move toward a more modern publication backed by changes in our production and sales organization.”