Great interview with Harold Evans in the Independent:

“Should The New York Times be redesigned? Absolutely,” he says. “To give you one simple example of newspaper design. If you have one very attentive ear, you can hear rows in New York as people try to follow a section jump, from the first section to C section.

“If your wife or husband is already reading the C section and you have a jump, it’s impossible. The New York Times desperately needs to rethink its whole design.”

The New York Times may have held up changes for fear of upsetting its conservative readership but do things lose their authority by bowing to the seductions of colour and design? “No,” says Evans.

“The same argument is used when the [British-based] Times put news on the front page, the same argument was used against me when I put information on the back page. It’s bullshit.

“What does the authority consist of? Does it consist of a small type and slovenly presentation and classified advertising? No. It consists of the clear visual signal and how you organise the values on the page.

“The most important thing is: ‘Is it giving me a calibration of news values?’ You don’t lose authority by organising things clearly. You actually lose authority by presenting things in a way that appears [as though] you haven’t thought about the space.”