A quick look at RedEye’s Aug. 11 redesign
Lost among the Orlando Sentinels and the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinels and the Baltimore Suns was one Tribune-company redesign that we mentioned but saw little of: RedEye.
Yes, RedEye redesigned Aug. 11. The folks at Free-Daily.com even called it a tweak, rather than a redesign:
The “R” in RedEye has gone from uppercase to lower case on the cover of the Chicago Tribune’s youthful free daily. The paper itself is 1 1/2 inches shorter than before. And the headline font has been changed to Stag Sans.
…The content of RedEye hasn’t changed, and that’s a good thing. Lots of short, snappy stories — blurbs really — that move a reader through the paper quickly.
…They’re the kind of stories you’d be apt to talk about over the watercooler.
A very nice write-up. But hardly detailed enough for you news designer-types. So we were relieved when RedEye design director Chris Courtney sent us some pages this week.
Chris writes:
It’s been hell around here with the redesign of RedEye and the launch of Mash being so close to one another. This week, we talk RedEye. Next week, you’ll see my other project, Mash.
We touched on Mash in this post, a couple weeks ago, in this post.
Like the man says, though: More about that later.
Chris continues:
The reason for a RedEye redesign, other than we just felt like doing it, was we were losing an inch and a half off the bottom of our pages due to our conversion to the 48. Take whatever size pains are felt by a broadsheet and double them for us. It simply didn’t make sense to continue in our old style once you saw what the new page size was going to do to us.
The new page one:
Before-and-after. Note the size difference:
The first order of business was to rethink the architecture, toss out the old type—which we used in a very vertical manner and find ways to not make the pages feel overwhelmed with type, yet not run everything at two inches.
Our storytelling philosophy is largely as it always has been—look for opportunities to break rules. For our brethren around TribCo, welcome to our party… you’re only 6 years late :)
But seriously, have we been here 6 freaking years? I’ve gotta go find something else to do, man.
Of the philosophies that did change, most were structural and tone-oriented.
* Don’t feel that you need to use rules when white space will work fine
* Don’t feel like that headline needs to fill out. If it does, take it down 10-20 points.
* All caps? Only on big stories.
* Screens? Who the hell needs them. They only hinder legibility. Besides, isn’t that what these 6-12 point bright red dividers are for?
Is it working? Not entirely. As with any redesign, it’ll take us a good month to get our feet under us. But with this staff, I really feel pretty good about our shot at success.
Readers have been overwhelming positive, even with a .7 reduction in type size. It’s been called first-class, punchy and cute. It’s also been called a steaming heap of ****, but I’ve already knocked that person off so its almost like it never happened.
The important thing is that we solicited comments from our readers and posted everything on the wall here in the office for the staff to read. The official approval rating is at 66%. We took an inch-and-a-half away and from them and they still like it.
I’m sure someone/everyone in the community won’t like it, but that’s the great thing about being reader-focused—I don’t care what any of you industry people think anyway. :)
In a separate message, Chris adds, as an afterthought:
Oh yeah. We changed the logo.
Chris says he’ll be covering all this — and a bit more — in his presentation next week at SND/Vegas.
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So, your Tribune-company redesign scorecard should read:
Sunday, June 22: Orlando Sentinel
Monday, July 28: Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call
Monday, Aug. 11: Chicago RedEye
Sunday, August 17: South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Sunday, Aug. 24: Baltimore Sun
Sunday, Sept. 28: Chicago Tribune, Hartford Courant
No dates available:
* Los Angeles Times
* AM NewYork
* Newport News (Va.) Daily Press
August 29th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I really wish that the LA Times would have a free daily like Red Eye. I’ve known about Red Eye since it was introduced when I was in J-School, and it seems like a great idea. unfortunately, I’ve only picked up an issue once, when I was visiting Chicago last year, but nonetheless, I think its a good model for a youthful daily paper. Here in LA we have Metromix which is nice and all, but it’s kind of a waste bc it’s weekly, and there’s no news in it. LA Weekly is full of ads and City Beat is second rate.
August 31st, 2008 at 11:37 pm
While a RedEye edition for LA hasn’t been ruled out, nothing is actively being pursued at this time either. I’ll pass along your comment to our peeps in LA, as I would love to see an LA version of the Eye as well.