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Al Thawra Newspaper Design System
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Project Overview
Founded in 1962, Al Thawra is a Yemeni daily that has long been part of the country’s visual and editorial memory. This project builds a complete editorial design system for the paper in Adobe InDesign, bringing grid, hierarchy, Arabic typography, color, components and templates into one structure ready for daily production. The system has been tested across fifteen varied pages.
Visual ConceptA newspaper with a strong, organized presence and a contemporary voice that still respects its daily rhythm. Each section keeps its own character within one visual family: the front page is fast and forceful, features unfold at length, culture slows down, and opinion puts the writer front and center.
Grid & HierarchyA flexible five-column grid is tied to a baseline grid built on leading values, keeping vertical rhythm steady across columns. The hierarchy answers the reader quickly: what matters most, what comes next, where a story begins and ends. It relies on weight, spacing, color and position, not size alone.
The creative direction pairs a distinctive lowercase wordmark with an expressive color palette. Purple, pink, orange, and light blue establish a playful, contemporary personality, giving the brand a recognizable presence across its packaging and visual communications.
Arabic Typography
Type levels are tied to editorial functions: Manshet for headlines, Master Text for body copy, Header for section and page headers, and Names & Data for bylines and information, plus pull quotes, standfirsts and supporting elements.
Color & Imagery
Red signals priority and identity, supported by black, gray and white for calm reading space. Photography is treated as an editorial element with its own placement, scale and relation to the headline. Opinion pages feature black-and-white illustrated portraits with a limited touch of red.
Production System in InDesign
Paragraph Styles built with Based On inheritance: shared properties live in base styles, and functional styles derive from them. One change flows predictably to dependent styles, which reduces errors and speeds up page building. Reusable components and page templates support the system.
Next Steps
Finalizing the four-column grid, completing the component and template library, testing body text and leading in real-size print, locking portrait treatment rules, and stress-testing long headlines and breaking-news cases.