After two years of research and development — focus groups and online communities with thousands of readers — the Atlanta Journal-Constitution launched the first part of its transformative redesign today. Not just a new look, the paper has reorganized the newsroom, reallocated resources and rethought how the print product should work for readers who love newspapers. Here’s a glance at today's new daily AJC, compared with pages from Monday and April 27, 2008. We’ll show pages from the new AJC Sunday on May 3.
(Click on the images for a closer look.)
From AJC Editor Julia Wallace:Print is a powerful medium. We know that more and more people are getting their information in a digital format. But we also know that many still love and enjoy reading a newspaper.
Nearly two years ago, we set out to chart a course for the future. As information habits changed and more of our print audience shifted to the Internet, we knew the status quo was not an option. A struggling economy only added to the challenge before us.
We thought the best answers would come from our readers. We talked to thousands of them. They guided us to the new product you’re holding in your hands today.
This daily newspaper is one designed for newspaper readers. For years our industry has chased those elusive nonreaders. Our market research led us down a different path. What we’d have to do to win over those nonreaders risked driving away our core readers. We believe we can thrive by increasing the satisfaction of those who already engage with us regularly. So … you see a newspaper that looks and reads very much like a newspaper.
We’ve invested millions in press upgrades, more color and a more newsy, sophisticated look. We hired an award-winning design firm, Lacava Design, from Montreal to help us create a newspaper that is easy to use and filled with information.
Also along the way, we found ways to do things more efficiently. Our reader feedback proved valuable when economic necessities forced us to scale back plans and coverage. It was our readers who helped us set priorities for what to keep and what could be sacrificed.
We’ve already rolled out most of the content changes the last few months. Today’s print redesign is the culmination of a lot of hard, sometimes painful work that at its heart reflects the optimism and dedication to a long and prosperous future in this community.
What’s the overall design philosophy? The new look could be called “Modern Classic.” It plays off the best of traditional newspapers, but with a modern, more colorful feel. What you’ll see is a newspaper that has been built with our readers and advertisers in mind. The AJC will be a newspaper for newspaper readers, those with a true affinity for print. The new design balances their needs with the efficiencies we need.
Will the daily and Sunday newspapers look different? Yes, slightly. We know that readers use the paper differently on weekdays and Sundays. Our new design offers a sweep of news and topics quickly on weekdays when readers are busy. On Sunday, it has a more relaxed look that invites readers to settle in and spend some time with the newspaper.
Did you change the fonts? Yes. We’ve simplified our typography, taking our cues from classic American and European newspapers. The primary font, Publico, customized for the AJC by Christian Schwartz, is exceptionally readable and easy on the eyes at all sizes. It is named for the Lisbon, Portugal, newspaper that first used it. Our secondary font, Boomer, is used for information boxes, photo captions and calendars. It was originally developed for AARP.
Is the newspaper smaller? Yes. The redesigned AJC is narrower, printed with soy ink on 100 percent recycled paper. Many American newspapers have narrowed their formats in recent years. The new pages are more compact, but because of denser layout and improved typography, content is not sacrificed. It saves trees and reduces one of our largest business costs.
Who did the redesign? An in-house team that is led by product design chief Will Alford collaborated with Montreal-based Lucie Lacava, a celebrated designer of more than 60 publications across North and South America, Europe and the Middle East.
When was the AJC last redesigned? Changes are nothing new for newspapers. Most go through a facelift about every five years. The most recent comprehensive redesign of the AJC occurred in 1999.
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