Star Ledger of Newark, N.J., redesigns
The redesign launched last Wednesday.
On the left is a front from a few weeks ago. On the right is Wednesday’s debut front (Click on anything here today for a larger look):
Innovation editor George Frederick writes:
Goals
Cohesive: Typographically, we were all over the place.
Simple: We made it less confusing for the user.
Sturdy: We made it more difficult to design a bad page.
Responsible: We made sure to do right by our loyal readership.
Attractive: Obviously.
A closer look at the new page one. This one is from Thursday:
George writes:
Typography
All of our new fonts were created my Mario Feliciano (Feliciano Type Foundry). We use the Flama family (sans serif), Mayeur family (serif) and the Morgan Avec family (slab serif for section flags and labeling).The design of the faces is strong. Each is contemporary without being trendy. Each is versatile. And the three unrelated families are united by Feliciano’s considerable eye for form and space.
A before-and-after look at the Sunday front:
George continues:
Process
The launch of the redesign is a sweet conclusion to an arduous year. In February, we the installment of a new front end system (JazBox). That meant completely recreating our old design in a new system — font conversion, licensing, scripts, training, learning, erring, fixing, training — the whole routine.Beginning in late July, we went through every step of that process again to launch a redesign as part of our web reduction project.
We launched on Wednesday, Nov. 18. We’re all exhausted.
People
Myself, along with staff designers Mark Voger and Shawn Weston and freelancers Sharon Russell and Linda Coleman.Mario Feliciano is the type designer.
Freelancer Jean Tuttle designed our logos and icons.
Jon Winters, owner of Electronic Publishing Support and script builder extraordinaire, was a key factor in making the interface powerful, efficient, and user-friendly.
The quality and dedication of this small crew, along with the support of Star-Ledger Editor Kevin Whitmer and his predecessor Jim Willse, made it possible to complete this big job in a small window.
Here’s a daily entertainment front from last Thursday, Day Two of the new design:
Here’s the first Sunday entertainment front, from yesterday:
George concludes:
Reader response
It’s a hit. Phone calls and emails are overwhelmingly positive (strange for a redesign). We are considered to more legible, fun and current. I’ll take em all.Next
Sleep. Then some design tweaking.