Courtesy of visiting friends, I'm belatedly aware of the New York Times redesign. They've reduced the width (by 1.5 inches) to standard tabloid size while maintaining the broadsheet height. It's a very odd shape.
I imagine they assumed that going tabloid would implicitly diminish their stature and reduce their differentiation from existing city rivals the Post and the News. But that's nonsense. The size of the paper is predominantly a usability issue, it is the design and content that differentiates the consumption experience.
Seems to me, they're stuck in the mindset of how newspaper professionals view newspapers and not that of how their readers view them.
