Medical Makeover

At the beginning of May, Swedish weekly newspaper Dagens Medicin will be the first of Bonnier's Medicine Today International publications to launch a new design for all the titles in the group. "The current design was a bit old-fashioned and needed to be updated," says Mikael Nestius, editor in chief and CEO for Dagens Medicin. "The logo seemed especially in need of freshening - it was the least modern part of the newspaper and not functional enough for today's needs."

The weekly was founded in 1994, and since 2009 Medicine Today International has been part of Bonnier Business Publications. Other publications include Dagens Medicin in Denmark, Dagens Medisin in Norway, MediUutiset in Finland, Medicina danes in Slovenia, Puls Medycyny and Puls Farmacji in Poland and Meditsiiniuudised in Estonia.

The redesign was needed not just because the times had changed. "The design didn't match what we wanted to convey. Five or more years ago, Dagens Medicin was a lot thicker - both with content and advertising," says Nestius. "There was more variety and the rhythm was different. With fewer texts and advertising, a lot of this variety had disappeared. We needed take it back and give more weight to articles that were more important, both on the cover and inside." The last redesign of the weekly was in 2007.

Redesign leader Jacek Utko, design director for Bonnier Business Press International, is a prize-winning designer whose redesigns of Bonnier titles Puls Bizneu in Poland and Äripäev in Estonia have gotten a lot of international attention along with being named "World's Best Designed Newspaper" by the Society for News Design.

"What was good about this redesign was that Mikael had already done a lot of research and analysis before we started," says Utko. At first glance, he says, the publication looked okay and there were plenty of elements that seemed fine. But digging deeper, there were problems in need of a fix.

"There were big issues with the hierarchy of the text and helping readers make decisions on what was most, less and least important," he cites as an example.

Another challenge that Utko will be facing is adapting a common design concept to different cultures and countries, something he has a lot of experience in doing.

So far, he's worked primarily with the Swedish Dagens Medicin, but already he has seen some major differences in reader tastes. But he's confident about the final design.

"We found a formula that's quite modern, more like a magazine with some non-typical newspaper elements as well," he says. "I'm particularly pleased with a fresh blue color we've chosen that some were skeptical about but has turned out really well."