Independent gets serious with Viewspaper

The new Lebedev-owned  Independent has relaunched with a new typography and design today plus a pledge to be a serious paper free of proprietorial influence or political affiliation.

The biggest change is inside with a new 20-page second section called Viewspaper.
The Independent's editor-in-chief Simon Kelner, now back in daily editorial charge of the paper following the departure of editor Roger Alton, once described the Independent as a "viewspaper" rather than a newspaper simply reporting the news.

Viewspaper is to contain opinion, commentary, an expanded letters page, coverage of cultural matters, a daily essay and in-depth features on the environment, media, science, technology and history. It will also contain arts reviews, TV schedules, obituaries, and the As If cartoon strip, plus some new features such as a round-up of the best of the web, and aperçus by  Charles Nevin. 

Weather, crosswords, Sudoku and a daily picture quiz are switched to the  new Living section, which comes between Business and Sport. 

The design work has been led by Cases & Associates of Barcelona, and the headline fonts are Sun (in the main section) and Farnham and Clan (in Viewspaper).

In a message to Indy readers, Kelner said today: "We hope you like how the new Independent looks. But we would most like to be judged by the quality of our content. We make no apologies for erring on the side of seriousness; these are serious times and we believe that what is most needed on the media landscape is a newspaper that is truly free of proprietorial influence and political affiliation (something no other paper can claim) to make some sense of the world around us."