Charles Apple

Our friend Alan Jacobson writes today of his latest redesign project — The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle in Cheyenne:

It’s remarkable because it will belie the fact that it’s merely a 16,0000-circulation daily with fewer than two dozen people in its newsroom. When so many papers decry their lack of resources, I think Cheyenne will demonstrate what is possible at any newspaper that possesses the skill and the will to change.

Here’s a before-and-after. The page on the right is a prototype:

Here is today’s A1:

Tuesday’s other fronts. Click the thumbnail for a larger view:

Back to Alan:

Unlike some of my other projects at similar-sized papers, this one has the benefit of three talented designers who are led by Kiah Staley, AME/Presentation - they are the key to making this new design a reality in Cheyenne.

This design is taking a bold approach in several respects:

1. It reduces the number of above-the-fold elements to three.

Reducing the count allows Cheyenne to increase the size of each element, with the goal of making each headline legible from a car-length away as a means of promoting single-copy sales.

2. It does away with the weekly, 12-page entertainment tab, and replaces it with a daily, 4-page broadsheet section called ToDo, in response to readers’ requests for more information more often about places to go and things to do.

Who says tabs are better than broadsheets? Our focus groups didn’t.

3. It places a greater emphasis on headline writing as a means of encouraging broader and deeper readership.

4. It employs a lot more color throughout to leverage the superior color quality of Cheyenne’s brand-new MAN Roland press.

Headlines are all from the Griffith family. Section flags are set in Pennsylvania. The nameplate is Escrow Semibold Condensed.

Cheyenne’s sister paper in Laramie will launch its redesign in August. This redesign will include an even more radical approach to above-the-fold presentation in an attempt to boost single-copy sales.

Attached are before-and-after pages from the redesign and the prototype that was shown to focus groups in May.

I think these befores-and-afters are always instructive because they demonstrate a change in story selection and headline writing in published pages, in addition to changes in the visuals.

Alan has posted more at his web site today. For example, you’ll find this additional prototype front:

Alan writes:

The Wyoming Eagle Tribune in Cheyenne broke in its new press by breaking some of the basic rules of newspaper design. Where’s the dominant image? You won’t find it on this page because none of the photos is larger than 2-cols. This design gives its above-the-fold real estate to headlines rather than images, because research shows that impulse buyers are more motivated by headlines.

Hmm. Very interesting. Alan’s research certainly is a reversal of what I’ve always heard: That visuals — specifically, photos — steer impulse buys.

Tag a thumbnail for a larger view of Alan’s prototype pages:

Congratulations on another successful launch, Alan! Best wishes to the folks in Cheyenne!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 10th, 2008 at 8:05 am and is filed under Innovative ideas, News design, Newspapers, Redesigns, Small papers, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.