Not too small, not too big, appears to have been the guiding principle behind a redesign of The Guardian.

An excerpt from the NYT story:

The idea was to make The Guardian smaller, but not too small; lively to the eye, but still serious in content; new and improved, but familiar, said Alan Rusbridger, its editor.

"I think if you got all the editors to speak honestly, they would say that the broadsheet has had its day," he said in an interview. "It feels too big, too unwieldy, too old-fashioned. We didn't need persuading that we would change. The only question is, would you follow what the others had done" - that is, go tabloid - "or choose the Berliner size."

A Berliner, in newspaper terms, means a Continental-style paper, along the lines of Le Monde in France, which folds in half like a broadsheet but opens up like a tabloid. The Guardian has also changed its typeface - it has created a new font, called Guardian Egyptian - improved the quality of its photographs with the new presses; begun publishing color on every page, and shrunk its G2 features section to the size of a minimagazine, now one of four sections published daily.

Mr. Rusbridger said the newspaper had tried hard to offer the same content as before. Tabloids, with their habit of splashing one huge story on the front page, have to use sexy, bold articles to draw readers in and keep them turning the pages; the Berliner format still has room for a wide mix of articles, both on the cover and inside, and can allow The Guardian to retain its gravitas and appeal to serious readers, he said.

"We now have seven tabloids and sometimes they look pretty same-y," Mr. Rusbridger said. "If you swim against the tide and do something which is counterintuitive, you will get a different type of audience."