Here the differences between the largest and smallest headlines are shorter and the sizes of the headlines are reduced up to one column of 10-points body text. The reduced number of pages, which is usually offered by the free papers, demands a greater use of space.
Free newspapers use Serif typography for the body text. They are recently designed fonts (Nimrod, Swift, Utopia and Benton) with classical inspiration.
The font used in the body text of the paid-for papers is also of classic design, like Charter, Imperial, Mercuri and Majerit.
The typographic treatment of the body text is very similar in both groups, and only slight differences were observed.
In these cases, side-heads are larger than the body of text, of heavier typography, generally bold or extra bold, and (in cases such as La Vanguardia) are integrated in the body text. While some papers like Abc and La Vanguardia opt for a typographic differentiation with Sans Serif types, other papers like El Pais and El Mundo simply resort to using bold fonts in the body text.
In relation to the size of their body texts--from 8.8 to 10-, the size of these headings is enough to clearly mark the typographical distinction between heading and body text without having to resort to other types of design resources.
In the free papers, the small size of the headings demands the use of other design resources to achieve the necessary typographic differentiation between heading and body text. In this case, colour is the most commonly used resource for the background, the typography and both.
The remaining 25%, which corresponds to Metro, breaks that monotony by using an extra bold typography in the body text. In all cases, the typographic contrast is achieved, and this is added to a more informal composition style with left alignment, which notably makes more enjoyable the page layout.
The typographical austerity of the paid-for papers also extends to the fonts used in the body text of the supporting information sections.
