TheSans-day Times

Sunday Times made themselves over with a bold new look and equally bold new articles.

And they chose the very Dutch TheSans for the masthead the section heads. Which although rather “overused” locally thanks to OCBC and Compaq, still manages to look rather fresh and continental because of the rather uncommon weight that they chose. In fact the weight made me wonder for days, whether it was indeed Lucas de Groot’s sweetie or if I had been staring at the specimen sheet too much.

I’m more than partial to TheSans and I like the sunny-side up with ketchup colours, and the new layout. Only problem is that they still held on to Interstate from the 1999 Roger Black redesign of the Straits Times. In fact they continue to use it for all the headlines and stand-firsts, effectively making the only thing that was revamped, the masthead! OK, and the section heads.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Interstate too. But they’re strange bedfellows, they don’t need each other, and seeing them together grates on me even more than Sumiko Tan’s weekly whine about her singlehood.

Surely a family of 48 fonts in all its interpolated glory and a party of proportional numerals, is more than enough to set the 112-page paper.

Heck, if they had any guts at all, they would drop the Garamond as well, and use TheSans singularly throughout. Serif sheriffs be damned.