The “Les Guides Bleus” collection from Hachette Tourisme, which celebrates its 183th anniversary in 2024, is getting a new look, eight years after its last redesign in 2016. With this completely redesigned formula, the publisher is opting for a tighter catalog very cultural destinations, in line with the brand's DNA. From November 20, three titles inaugurate the overhaul: Rome, Egypt and Rajasthan.
Sold for 35 euros, the guides of the new formula remain designed to be both field works and travel preparation on the niche market of cultural guides. “ We are targeting demanding readers who want to immerse themselves very early in a culture or place. », confides Sidonie Cholletdirector of Hachette Tourisme.
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The “Guides Bleus” audience expects to find very comprehensive content on a destination, “ as if he had a tour guide available who takes him by the hand and reveals all the secrets of a place », specifies for his part Cécile Petiaueditorial director at Hachette Tourisme.
The redesign is also an opportunity for “Les Guides Bleus” to reconnect with their roots. A bias visible in the sobriety of the new semi-rigid covers in flexible cardboard with a material effect and a gilding iron illustration. With stable pagination, the interior model, more refined and including fewer (but larger) photos, plays the monochromy card in lavender blue shades.
For an audience keen on culture, erudite and not very targeted
Founded in 1841 by Adolphe Joanne et Louis Hachette at the time of the first trains and first known as “Guides Joanne”, “Les Guides Bleus” took their definitive name in 1919, as the democratization of car travel began.
The collection was then characterized by the sobriety of its covers, which remained without illustration until the 1970s, a time from which a gradual rapprochement towards the graphic codes in force on the rest of the tourist guide market began.
More illustrated, more practical, “Les Guides Bleus” from the 2000s ended up no longer sufficiently distinguishing itself graphically from other titles on the market, while “ at Hachette Tourisme, the principle is that each collection delivers a different promise », recalls Sidonie Chollet. Observation which led to the new graphic bias of an aesthetic manufacturing marked by a return to sober design. “ The promise of culture and standards needed to be reaffirmed. The previous model trivialized the exceptional wealth of our guides », continues Sidonie Chollet.
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While they retain the cultural information that has made them famous (commented works of art, boxes, focus, dictionary of cultural terms, glossary of artists, etc.), the new guides have been revised and enriched on certain sections. They notably include a literary notebook presenting authors and various extracts from their works.
Each work in the collection will be printed in around 5,000 copies. The next three destinations will appear at the end of 2025; these will be Andalusia, Tuscany and Japan. Ultimately, around fifteen guides will be affected by the overhaul.
