With the world of journalism abuzz about its own demise, it was the Guardian, yesterday, that brought back the aesthetic of newspaper romanticism to the internet.
The headline was large and graphic: AFGHANISTAN: THE WAR LOGS, Afghanistan in black; The War Logs in red; big font, clean, crisp.
Beneath, a grammatically incorrect sentence. Afghanistan war logs: Massive leak of secret files exposes truth of occupation
Georgia. 26 point. Gray.
It’s the kind of headline that makes you want a stiff drink and a cigarette.
Below that headline, an article about a leak of some 90,000 documents that present the horrible truth about war. The truth we’ve been trying to ignore for nearly a decade—civilians dying, no end in sight, the rules of engagement: ignored.
It’s nothing a news junkie doesn’t already know. But it’s laid out in a way that makes it new. That allows those who don’t want to know…who don’t want to think about what’s happening far away…to look at it all in a new light.
But, as I said, this is about art, not about the contents of war itself.
This series has what’s been missing from war coverage. It has style.
Interaction, good design, a diversity of choices. Everything you need to catch up on the issue, easy to reach and stylized. It has what print newspapers had and have lost. It’s beautiful.