UPDATED: Sun-Sentinel’s new look
The Sun-Sentinel made some significant changes today. Read editor Earl Maucker’s column about them here. The nameplate has been redrawn and repositioned and there’s more use of color on the front. Also, the inside nameplates have been redone. Here’s some images:
BEFORE
AFTER
DETAIL
UPDATE: Â
Tim Frank has posted some of today’s section fronts at NPD.
Ernie: So when...
October 1st, 2006 at 8:37 pm
Looks good - congrats to Tim and his crew.
Can we see some of these section fronts?
October 1st, 2006 at 9:55 pm
I don’t have any samples, but I’ve e-mailed Tim Frank to see if he can get me some. I’ve thumbed through it and it’s not bad. I know a little history (no new fonts) and saw some prototypes before I left the paper–these are very similar to what they were working on four months ago.
October 2nd, 2006 at 12:46 am
It’s stunning how CLEAN the new Sunday front looks compared to the old one.
Also, Nicole, it seems like that strongly-colored series they ran last week was just a practice shot before they did this.
October 2nd, 2006 at 1:38 pm
I definitely think the flag looks better now. I was never a fan of the thick red line. It looks better with the blue on the end. I also like the refer style they used. The Daily Digest looks less clunky than before. The shaded boxes break it up making it more inviting.
October 2nd, 2006 at 2:40 pm
I see a lot of tweaking, but I wonder if there were any conceptual changes that aren’t evident at first blush. Color coded sections are probably not a bad idea, and they should be adumbrated through the big index box, even if that might create a little color-clutter. There’s probably a subtle way to key that in.
October 2nd, 2006 at 3:02 pm
Well done, Tim! A standing O from your friends up north!
October 2nd, 2006 at 4:09 pm
Notice how starting the nameplate on the left side makes it look more like a Web page. . .:-P
Love the colors. Wow, they’re gorgeous! Do they have new mega presses or something?
I was never a fan of the Daily Digest, but in this form it’s a lot easier on the eyes. Me likey.
October 2nd, 2006 at 5:32 pm
BTW, forgot to mention this: It’s definitely unintentional, but the Sun-Sentinel flag looks a lot like Bluffton Today’s flag now with the combination of the left-aligned flag, the teaser layout and the red bar below it.
October 2nd, 2006 at 10:55 pm
Thanks for the comments guys and for the post, Nicole.
The color is mostly about giving the paper a strong local voice. We are finishing a press expansion to add more color capability and that drove the deadlines for this phase of the redesign.
When you are using this much color, you need to reduce visual noise where you can. We are cleaning up the furniture, including softening our rules to 20% black and simplifying shapes. We tried the color-coded digest in a number of ways, but it was just too noisy.
Section flags, headlines and labels are all now aligned left to give the paper a less formal, more horizontal feel. It only made sense to move the nameplate and better integrate it into the design. It never occurred to me that we looked a little like Bluffton. Hmmm, that’s not such a bad thing.
Huge props to Jon Boho, Rebekah Monson, Vanessa Cordo and Chris Mihal making it all happen.
October 3rd, 2006 at 1:43 am
Wow. Nice job, Tim. A paper as colorful as south Florida. And while I’ve never been big on section color coding, it’s done well here. And I really like the daily digest.
October 3rd, 2006 at 10:33 am
Overall, I like the changes. I’m enjoying this trend toward more color and color-coding that many newspapers are making. I’d like to see us do more of it in the future.
I do admit though (and this is based ONLY on the two sample front pages above): I like the top half of the “Before” front page better, and I like the bottom half of the “After” front page better. The Daily Digest now looks much better and more friendly to the eyes.
In the “Before” sample, I liked the centered nameplate (although making that red bar functional by adding the date and web address was a top-notch idea). That top half just seems so much cleaner. BUT, Good job guys!
October 4th, 2006 at 3:04 am
Yeah, Josh, I guess I never really understood the red bar’s thickness and placement. Sorta like Orlando’s previous not-quite-long-enough 1A and section nameplates.
It appears the logotype itself got a little sprucing up. It’s a little lighter and more welcoming — though the letterspacing seems a little odd to me (and maybe it’s just the way the JPEG is rendered — that’s not surprising).
I really like the digest. I’m a little surprised the color-coding didn’t find its way somehow into that digest, but it’s probably better it didn’t. It’s sooooo much easier to navigate than before, and the subtle use of color helps organize it.
I just had a thought: 20 years or so ago, it was 1986. (That, in itself, isn’t the thought. Keep reading.) How many papers back then were running dark-colored nameplates with logotypes reversed out, a way of screaming to readers, “hey, we’ve got color!” Looks like the pendulum is swinging back, though this time, we’re more savvy about how we apply color, and it’s taking new shapes, too (hot L, anyone?).
Anyway, Lauderdale’s lookin’ good, folks.
October 5th, 2006 at 7:15 pm
The design changes are OK. Still, I’d get away from using those “heavy” fonts on headlines. They’re just overbearing.
And what’s with that mega-digest on Page 1A? And only TWO stories on Page One? To borrow a line from a congressional page: Awful.Awful. Awful. Awful. Awful.