Het Parool

Custom wordmark and masthead for the redesign of the Dutch newspaper Het Parool

Het Parool is an Amsterdam-based daily newspaper. It was first published on the 10 February 1941 as a resistance paper during the German occupation of the Netherlands (1940–1945). In English, its name means The Password or The Motto. Het Parool was restyled twice by Mario Garcia: in 2004 (when it became a tabloid) and in 2008.

The masthead design approach
The art directors John Koning and Floor Koop, asked Laura to work on some proposals for the masthead and logo for the redesigned newspaper commemorating the paper’s 75th birthday. The starting point was a clear briefing: ‘back to basics’ and design a logo with a strong and powerful identity. After some different ideas, exploring a vast range of possible typographic styles, and the final solution was based on the combination of the two typefaces that play a lead role in the new newspaper, Tiempos Headline Black and Quarto, also the typeface for the headlines (see the second image).
Laura’s approach to the design was to look very close to all the letters that compose the logo, and the two words, and see how they could become a distinctive logotype and masthead, and not just two words set with a given typeface. The new logo not only adorns the front page and the homepage, but is also visible in all expressions of Het Parool. If you want to read more about the redesign of the newspaper you can do it at the newspaper online or here (only in Dutch).

Het Parool was voted best-designed newspaper by the European Newspaper Award twice, in 2004 and again in 2016, after this redesign.