No-Ficción website

The situation for independent, investigative journalism is more than difficult throughout Central America. This is also true for Guatemala which, in 2023, ranks 127th out of 180 countries listed in the World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters without Borders. Journalists investigating in illegal business and corruption suffer from defamation, physical attacks and also from persecution by state authorities. A most recent case that made it into international headlines is that of José Rubén Zamora who found himself accused of money laundering and remains arrested since June 2022. His incarceration plunged his newspaper, El Periódico, in substantial turbulences. After almost thirty years the Guatemalan flagship newspaper ceased to exist in May 2023.

But there is hope. On one hand, there is a new government after the 2023 elections, on the other hand, there is a handful of younger media outlets, mostly founded in the digital sphere, that carry on the torch. Among them is the website featured in this post, No-Ficción. It was brought to life in 2017 and quickly managed to achieve excellent reputation. No-Ficción’s pillars are faithful and profound real-life narratives, investigation and data journalism, in order to join the dots behind the news. On a structural level, they pursue a collective strategy inside that makes it harder to silence the enterprise by targeting the figurehead; and a networking strategy outside, forming an alliance with other media outlets in the larger Mesoamerican region.

The design of the website of No-Ficción follows a simple yet efficient pattern. In the single post entry, a large photograph is followed by single-column left-aligned typesetting, further (smaller) pictures and other media such as audio players might be embedded in that column. Clearly different are the designs for special topics, mostly series, and the “About us” pages that display larger type on a black background.

The site uses three typefaces, with Cardinal Fruit being the most defining one for its look. Fruit the condensed branch of Production Type’s larger Cardinal Collection, and as such especially useful for headlines and typesetting in tight columns. Cardinal Fruit references 1980s typography in general and early computer advertisements in particular. On no-ficcion.com, we can see it used in its Medium weight for heading and lead-ins. For the reading texts in the articles, No-Ficción uses the Light Narrow style of ITC Garamond, which was a reference point in the design of Cardinal Fruit, and as such is a natural fit. The type palette is perfected by Maax Mono for the secondary information, the navigation and the reading text in the “About us” pages.