Charles Apple

The Toledo Free Press — a free 115,000-circulation weekly in Toledo, Ohio — celebrated its fifth anniversary by launching a second weekly edition last week.

Lead designer James Molnar tells us the new Wednesday Star edition focuses…

…on local entertainment, sports and lighter fare compared to the hard-hitting Sunday edition.

On the left is last Wednesday’s debut front. On the right is today’s second edition front. Click either for a larger view:

The Free Press reported last week in its own story:

The expansion will mean the addition of up to a dozen new jobs, including a Social Networking Manager who will utilize such tools as Facebook and Twitter to make Toledo Free Press and Toledo Free Press “Star” more interactive.

James sent us a few samples from the first edition. Click any of these for a larger view.

Here’s the contents page…

…a calendar page…

…the obligatory sex column…

…and last Wednesday’s center spread:

James tells us:

Toledo Free Press now publishes two editions, the Sunday edition and the Star (Wednesday) edition. Sunday circulation is 115,000 and Wednesday circulation is 25,000. My editor-in-chief, Michael S. Miller, reminded me that TFP once started at 25,000 and has grown to be the best weekly newspaper in Ohio, winning an 2009 SPJ award for such.

[Yesterday, Tuesday, March 16] is the actual fifth year anniversary for Toledo Free Press. We are having a soirée [Tuesday night] at the bar below our offices in Downtown Toledo.

For your enjoyment here is this past Sunday’s edition. I got to have fun with the cover:

I’m pretty sure that’s Katie Holmes on the left. And I’m old enough to actually recognize that guy on the right. Do you?

And, of course, some blog readers — or any of you who have seen my Art of Being Brilliant presentation — might recall the Free Press‘ treatment for the Simpsons Movie three years ago.

Find the Toledo Free Press web site here.

Here’s the first print newspaper redesign — that we’ve heard about, anyway — of the new year…

Here, a free weekly tabloid based in New Brunswick, Canada, launched a redesign Thursday.

A before-and-after look at the cover:

Design consultant Lucie Lacava writes:

The Lacava Design team worked on a full redesign and content rethink with editor Charles Mandel, transforming Here into a leading-edge urban alternative magazine. A redesign of the website will follow later this year.

A closer look at the cover:

Lucie also posted a number of inside prototype pages (click any of these for a closer look):

Find a gallery of old-format Here covers, um, here.

Express — the free youth-oriented tabloid published by the Washington Post, launched a redesign Monday, Ernie Smith tells us.

Ernie writes:

We’ve made a lot of changes to the overall look that emphasizes bold design in a way that the paper really didn’t before.

The covers, for example, are now in a magazine style, closer to Link, Red Eye, TBT and other publications – past and present – like us. Reflecting the newsy nature of the District, our cover stories will mainly focus on hard news over soft – so no entertainment, and probably not sports right away.

Here’s a closer look at the new front:

Ernie continues:

This is a huge change for us. Before, our covers were very templated – usually with a photo in the center and a rail that consistently styled. Now, we have a lot more wiggle room.

Interestingly, Monday’s redesign kicked off with an interesting promotional ad that wrapped around the edition. Below left is the day’s “front page,” that actually appeared on page — despite what the numbering said  (note a promo across the top to page “3″). Below right is the promo page.

Ernie continues:

Express‘ format is different from most other papers I’ve worked at in that section editors, not designers, do much of the basic layout. The layout style reflects this – heavily gridded, no bastard measures for most stories, infrequent use of reversed type, so on and so forth.

A before-and-after look at the national news page:

A closer look at the new national page:

Now is probably a good time to tell you that the pages Ernie sent us are missing the ads. Hence, the white spaces.

The font changes, according to Ernie:

Old News headlines: Knockout
New News headlines: Flama

Old Features headlines: Miller
New Features headlines: Farnham (which I like a ton better, BTW)

Old Decks/Body Type: Miller
New Decks/Body Type: Fenway (that’s right, we changed our body type)

Our “utility” font of sorts, the slab-serif, is Popular, which is still kinda new – we added it after a page shrinkage seven or eight months ago.

Here’s the new cover story page:

A before-and-after look at the sports page:

A closer look at the new sports page:

Again, Ernie:

When I was brought on in February, I was the first designer the paper had that focused strictly on the news section design (rather than entertainment or features). Much of the work I’ve done so far involves “punching up” smaller designs or helping with larger packages, with focus mostly on news and sports pages. The big change for me with the covers is that I’ll be designing a daily cover package which will allow for a bit more freedom in design approach than things we’ve done in the news sections in the past.

Other features to note: Our entertainment pages are now much more colorful, and we’ve introduced a new Web-centric page called “The Feed,” which presents cool stuff that we’ve found all over the web (much of it on our @ExpressFeed Twitter account).

We simplified overly complicated pages (EyeOpeners, specifically) and added extra layers to things that could use more dynamic approaches (our TV page).

We should probably note that the pages Ernie sent us are all missing the ads. As you can probably guess.

A closer look at the new Eye Openers page:

Ernie, again:

The redesign was handled in-house by art director Scott McCarthy, with input from everyone in the newsroom. He did great work.

A before-and-after look at the Lookout page, near the back of the paper:

A closer look at the new Lookout page:

Ernie concludes:

The bulk of the comments so far have been regarding the cut in comics, from six to two.

By the way, you can download PDFs of any edition of Express, any day, here.

Salt Lake Tribune uberdesigner Colin Smith recently launched a redesign of In This Week, the Tribune’s free alternative weekly youth-oriented tab.

The tab — and its previous design — is three years old, Colin says:

I cleaned up the look a little a year ago when we went to a new front-end system, but those fixes were more technical than stylistic.

In This Week circulates 40,000 copies. The redesign hit the streets Aug. 27. Colin posted samples at VisualEditors and invited us to partake.

He writes:

The goals were to clean up the look, widen the visual appeal to target a broader demographic and simplify production. The result is a mostly template-driven redesign that incorporates many of the structural changes already implemented and gives it a nicer frame. Antenna is used for nearly everything (except body type).

Media One, the folks who print the Tribune, Deseret News, In This Week and a myriad of other niche publications, wanted to include more of a variety of promotional items on the cover.

This was my attempt at getting all that stuff out there. The new logo was designed to incorporate the Web site URL without making people think the print product was called inthisweek.com.

By the way, click any of the double before-and-after images for a larger view.

Colin tells us:

AME for Presentation and Online Josh Awtry helped immensely. Basically, I did the prototypes and built the templates and style guide while Josh worked really, really hard to convince the advertising side that changing the logo isn’t the worst thing ever. He was also the guiding hand that helped shape the editorial and structural changes that preceded the redesign by about a month. Although, really, he’s my hero for getting the new logo through.

Colin continues in his VizEds piece:

The previous design had become a bit, well, messy. This new design emphasizes modularity and clean edges to increase legibility.

By combining two columns onto a single page, and limiting each column to the same length each week, nearly two-thirds of a page was opened up for new content…

…in this case an expanded look at Web content.

All section fronts use pretty much the same templates. All entertainment sections (Music, The Arts, Style and Film + Games) are set in the lime green color.

Template.

Template.

Template. (Seeing a pattern here?)

The idea is that, by keeping the design simple where it doesn’t matter (headline positioning, font choices, color variation, etc.) it gives reporters, editors and designers the chance to really shine where it does matter (content, creativity, personality, etc.).

Template (with a rust color used to brand all sports content).

Template (with a dark green color).

Oh, and all Dining section fronts start on a color page now because, well, black and white food photos are, quite possibly, the worst thing ever. Worst. Thing. Ever.

There are several full-page columnists and, well, they all look like this.

Templates — gotta’ love ‘em.

Template (ta-da!).

The old [calendar] design was looking a bit disjointed (and sometimes the staff couldn’t find a good concert or event with art for every day) so this new design takes a more straightforward tack.

Inside calendar pages:

Colin concludes:

I wouldn’t call anything about this redesign new or innovative, but rather it’s a concerted effort to consistently create the best possible design with limited resources. But, then again, isn’t that what we’re all trying to do?

Find the In This Week web site here.

Metro, a free tab distributed in Boston, Philadelphia and New York, launched what it called “a radically redesigned newspaper” Monday.

A before-and-after look suggest something a little less than “radical,” however:

On the left is a Boston cover from a month or so ago. On the right is today’s Boston Metro cover.

A press release breathlessly reports:

Metro’s new format will embody a sleeker design and more sophisticated look while maintaining the concise, contemporary and colorful elements readers look for every day.

The oversized masthead, elegant color palate and new, bolder headline fonts will give Metro a more dynamic look.

Indeed, the new headline font — with serifs! — seems a little cleaner and bolder. The rail moves from the left to the right. But while the green nameplate contains quite a bit more red in it now, moving it from the vicinity of Kelly Green and into Forest Green territory, I’d say it’s no more “oversized” now than it was before.

A closer look at Boston’s front page today (click for a larger view):

For comparison purposes, here are the fronts for all three Metro editons today. From left to right: Boston, Philadelphia and New York:

The release states that combined, these three editions are…

…the 6th largest circulated and fastest growing newspaper in the Unites States. Attracting a young, active, well-educated audience of 1.2 million daily readers across New York, Boston, and Philadelphia.

In addition, Metro is published in more than 100 cities across 19 cities in Europe, Asia and the Americas.