I was actually going to post about the lack of updates from the Guardian about it’s qualoid relaunch yesterday, but the Jackson events beat me to it. Clearly, someone at the Grauniad was reading my mind, as today Julia Day announces that it’s going to happen early next year – nine months ahead of schedule by my count.

As far as I’m personally concerned, the sooner they make the change, the better. It’ll also be interesting to see the new design they come up with – their last relaunch caused something of a storm, and the look of the paper is still reasonably unique amongst the papers. Given that they’re going full-colour, I expect that they’re going to make much use of that in the design, and I can’t imagine me liking it if they do. At least at first. But I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

It seems strange that the Guardian have dropped their previously preferred qualoid synonym ‘midi’ for ‘Berliner’. I can’t imagine them launching with ‘Berliner’, so why introduce it now? Unless, of course, it’s just a bit of a slip. I’d imagine they’d go ahead with ‘midi’, unless of course they don’t refer to the size by any term in particular, just advertising that the paper has a new look. But I’d think they’d want to at least mention it.

Other than that, my reservations are largely still the same as they were in February:

The only thing that’s been worrying me since the announcement was made last September is this:

Most importantly, from the reader’s point of view, it will not leave the Guardian’s journalism untouched, particularly in the manner and tone of presentation.

The Guardian’s tone is one its great strengths. To change it would be suicide.

Hopefully, though, it’ll be pretty much the same Guardian, with a refreshing design and a much handier size. Hopefully.