The Freeman through a Century

CEBU, Philippines — Today The Freeman marks its first century of existence. The newspaper has been witness to Cebuano life all this time. And through those past 100 years, the paper’s masthead has evolved through the years.

More than the part of the newspaper that bears its title, the evolution of The Freeman masthead is proof of how Cebu’s eye for style has grown, reflective of the prevailing ‘taste’ at any given time.  It has been shaping up year after year – design-oriented shifts that speak of the publication’s standing as Cebu’s source of trustworthy and reliable news since 1919.

At one point vectored by hand-drawn fonts that bore didactic allusions to the “style moderne” movement, which gained popularity in the early 1900s, it didn’t take long for the paper to refine its ‘nameplate’ with a gilded serif typeface that was designed with available printing technologies.

Essentially underlined by the stylistic moorings pitched by the Art Deco movement, the paper’s past and present masthead styles reflect an “anti-traditional elegance” that is not without flair – a conformist-cum-non-conformist design directive that, one way or another, speaks of The Freeman’s role as witness and collaborator to the many growths and developments that’ve come, gone and are to come in Cebu.