The New York Observer, every literate New Yorker’s favorite pink newspaper, relaunched as a tabloid on Wednesday.

It’s printed on 30 pound stock, with a four-page wrap on 50 pound stock (the page above is the front of the wrap). Location, the real estate section, moves to the back cover. Typographically, they’re using Dispatch, Benton Sans and Mercury for display type. The front-page flag is by Jim Parkinson.

David Carr fretted in The New York Times:

The Observer redesign, however, is not simply a redesign, but a change in fundamentals, an altering of the product’s DNA.

As a technology, the new format works fine, more manageable, easier to navigate. But as a thing — and the physical properties of a print publication are more important in the digital age, not less so — The Observer has been trimmed in a way that makes it fit in all too well.

Does nostalgic-for-the-status-quo Carr have $2 million a year to cover the Observer's status-quo losses?

>A Note on the Redesign [New York Observer]
>A Cheeky Broadsheet’s Tabloid Makeover [The New York Times]
>Who Moved David Carr's ‘Observer’? [New York Magazine]
>Paper Cuts [New York Post]