From broadsheets to Broadsheet. See what I did there?
Last month I wrote about the end of the broadsheets as the Sydney Morning Herald moved over to a compact version. This month I’m looking at Broadsheet, a freebie newspaper which, rather confusingly, is not a broadsheet at all but rather another compact. Even more mysteriously, it bills itself as “Sydney’s leading independent online magazine and directory”. So, not a newspaper at all. Its masthead proclaims “Always online – sometimes in print” which sounds a bit apathetic to me but, hey, it’s free. I’m not inspecting its mouth too closely.
This particular version is printed on paper. I found it at a local café, which is appropriate given that’s what it seems to be about. Cafés. (…and fashion, music, art, food, design… look, I’m wandering off topic here). Where was I? Oh yes. Cafés. Cool cafés. But obviously not too cool because they also include a picture of a café where I have actually drunk coffee. How uncool is that.
It’s 28 pages cover to cover with a smattering of booze and design ads. It doesn’t say who printed it, which just as well because my copy was poor by modern standards – tinting, rub-off, creasing, misaligned pages and a cut-off that looks like it was done with a butter knife. All the things that give coldset web printing such a bad name. Or at least it used to… No wonder it’s only ‘sometimes’ in print.
Having said that, it looks good. And I actually read it right through and discovered a couple of new places for coffee and burgers, places where I may actually go and lower the tone. Nothing stays cool for long when I’m around.
