Charles Apple

We’ve chatted so much about the Chicago Tribune redesign that it seems like old news now.

But unless you’ve been hiding under a rock somewhere, you’re aware that the Tribune company’s corporate-wide redesign mandate finally hits home at the flagship paper Monday with a flashy new remade mama Trib.

The prototype front is on the right, of course. On the left is a live front page from a few weeks ago:

Here’s a sports front prototype, paired with an older page we culled from NewsPageDesigner:

On the left is an older Saturday biz front. Business will move inside the A section on weekdays, so on the right is a Sunday biz front prototype:

And finally, here is a new Arts and Entertainment prototype, paired with an older one we found:

Want to see more? Here are a couple more variations of page one, including a Sunday front on the right. As usual, tickle the thumbnail for a larger view:

   

The new A section starts off with the popular John Kass column on page two:

And then the obligatory ‘watercooler buzz’ story on page three. I don’t know whose idea it was to trace the evolution of Sarah Palin back through Tina Fey and Sally Jesse Raphael all the way to Velma Dinkley, but Jenkies, that’s just genius!

The new design eliminates the local section, placing the content from the former Metro section into the A section. Here are a couple of local A page prototypes on the left and a couple of Nation/World prototype pages on the right:

     

Like we said, the daily business section is eliminated as well. On the left are a couple of inside business pages. On the right are prototypes of the editor and OpEd pages:

     

All this material moving into the A section may creates a bit of a traffic jam for readers. How does one navigate a huge A section? The Trib created this helpful little guide that runs across certain pages in the A section:

Yes, that’s basically a “You are here” graphic. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of those in a daily U.S. newspaper. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a daily U.S. newspaper that needed one.

I asked Joe Knowles, the Trib’s AME for presentation and one of the big brains behind the project, about it today. Joe was kind enough to respond:

We felt we needed something overt because we were changing the structure of the paper… combining the metro and business reports into one ‘super A’ section. We can only print 32 pages maximum in one section, so this super A section often will divide into two pieces. We’ve done this before on days with heavy ad volume (though, regrettably, not so often lately).

How did it happen? Well, I got really tired of people talking about navigation. I mean, Christ, it’s a 40-page section, not a 600-page reference manual. I jokingly suggested a “You are here” mall map and put it on a page, mainly for my own entertainment. Guess what? Everybody loved it.

The idea is to run it on Page 2-3 of A, then repeat it on the ‘chapter’ openers (Met, Biz) as well as the front of the ‘breaker’ section (the first page of the second part of the main section)… so even if they separate those sections, they’ll have a mall map.

It would be really cool if the map could tell them where in their house they misplaced the other section of the paper. We’ll get to work on that.

These prototype pages were finally released Monday, while I was at work. So we’re a little slow to get them posted here. But regular blog readers know we bit on outdated prototype pages here and we linked to Robb Montgomery’s video featuring new prototype pages shown in Las Vegas here.

Read all about the new-and-improved Tribune here. Watch a video about the new design here.

Read stories about the Trib’s redesign in Crain’s Chicago Business and the Chicagoist or listen to a Chicago Public Radio story here.

This is just one of two major redesign launches planned for this weekend. The Tribune company’s Hartford Courant also reportedly kicks off its own redesign Sunday. The entire Tribune company calendar:

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

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Innovative ideas, Redesigns, News design, Newspapers, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.