Major Romanian newspaper website design “inspired” by Guardian.co.uk

When Jurnalul National (National Journal), the Romanian newspaper with the biggest number of sold copies launched their “new” beta site, made by the boys at DWD.ro, they decided to go cheap. Consequently, one should have a look at the obscene similarities with Guardian’s site.

EXHIBIT ONE: Top - header of Jurnalul.ro; Bottom - header of Guardian.co.uk

Starting with the header, things are quite obvious. The first line of the header was slightly adapted but kept the drop down category selector intact. The sign in and the search options were gracefully moved under the logo. Also, Jurnalul decided to have a grand advertisement in the header a la TimesOnline (the date is still above the logo).

The categories list is one of the most striking resemblances in the design, with the serif fonts used in the same manner, but Guardian’s color coding was eliminated (probably a bit too difficult to code). Jurnalul’s categories though, span on three lines, unlike Guardian’s.

Jurnalul “borrowed guardian’s style of expanding categories list across the top line in an arrow shaped box, even though it’s not as well coded and implemented (visible only when you start browsing through the site).

Some sort of color-coding was kept from Guardian, with the red news tag. Bit of an oversight there though, with the red line spanning across two columns instead of three (Guardian). But don’t worry, because the different color (and size) line after the main red one is still in Jurnalul’s design, grey instead of blue this time (just to make it a bit different).

And the cherry on top of the cake, Jurnalul has the same style of news ticker from Guardian, but without the control buttons (too hard to code again probably). Another quick mention for the higher positioning of the RSS icon on Jurnalul, plus the lack of the weather widget (could have been useful if it detected the reader’s location).

EXHIBIT TWO: Left - Jurnalul.ro body; Right - Guardian.co.uk body

Just in case this wasn’t convincing enough, comparing the two sites’ bodies makes it easier. Four columns (obviously), two of them the same width (why not?), the third used only for images/advertising (should have guessed that) while the fourth is used for advanced website navigation (naturally). The comparison says it all.

Nonetheless, Jurnalul made a few slight changes in the text display scheme (not very fortunate). The headlines are not as easy on the eye as Guardian’s, and they do not use a contrasting color. The body text is bolder and has less line and character spacing (than Guardian’s) and looks overall cluttered. They did not even learn how to wisely use the white space (Guardian has a more airy feel). Jurnalul.ro also uses a different style (not better though) of displaying photo captions on the main page.

HOW AND WHY ALL THIS DESIGN FIASCO HAPPENED?

Some newspapers need to understand that their website is a vital element for their image, and a bad concept can damage their integrity and credibility as a publication.

Investing more money in a website is a decision worth taking because the website can bring in valuable revenue and further promote the brand. Having a team to basically clone a major international newspaper’s website is not a very wise idea (even if you want to do it on a lower budget).

Also, there isn’t a good enough excuse to overlook the design of you beta site before it goes online. That is why in some cases, web designers (that do it on the cheap) should collaborate with an external consultant (or part of the newspaper team) to bring in an objective and critical analysis on the product in development.