Newspapers vs. Internet

They'll bitch because it's different, and that's what people do. How many, though, stop buying it because they don't like the way it looks? Usually, you get people threatening to cancel their subscriptions, but not many do. I'd love to know if anyone has numbers on how redesigns affect circulation numbers. I'll bet the impact is minimal.

 

I'll bet not. I believe the numbers in St. Louis are nowhere near what they were projected to be.

And are we really arguing that redesigns are a good thing because people complain about them? Man, newsrooms have really done a good job setting the agenda and steering people away from solid logic when it comes to the subject of design.

 

That is not within 1,000 miles of what I was "arguing."

 

OK. Well, one answer to your question would be the redesigns make the type harder to read, either by making it smaller or putting more of it into the shaded boxes designers love. Or sometimes both.

How often does a newspaper redesign, realize it fucked up, then have to send the "reader representative" out with an apology and an announcement of blowing the type size back up to where it should have been?

You can't tell me designers are reading the paper and worrying about content when these types of decisions are being made.

 

Good points. Like I said, I want you to be right.

 

If the delivery boy threw the internet at my front door, it would totally fuck up my laptop.

ADVANTAGE: newspapers

 

Redesigns can be good and bad. The Toronto Sun redesigned and saw a drop in circulation of 22,000 in six months. A revamped design recovered 13,000 of that. On the flip side, the Bakersfield Californian did a recent redesign. After the debut, early results showed subscription starts outnumbering stops 15-1 over stops and single-copy sales up 8-13%.

So, despite DyePack's rants otherwise, not all redesigns are bad. Ask The Oklahoman's staff if they didn't benefit from their redesign not too long ago. Sure, there are plenty of other papers where design hurts circulation. But it helps some, too.

And anyone who thinks a redesign of the look of a paper itself effects anything is fooling themselves. You can change the wrapper, but if it's still crap, it's still crap. You have to rethink content. Some papers do a fine job with content, but just about every paper can do a better job. The key is finding out what your readers want and how they want it.

And I'm sorry to all of those who have been at stops that valued design over content. The two should go hand-in-hand, with content driving design. But it goes overboard at some places. What pisses me off though is some idiot like DP, who obviously has issues with his station in life, blaming all of newspapers' ills on designers. Bottom line, though, is design does effect readers, both positively and negatively.

 

And you can't clean the carpet up with the Internet when you forget to let the dog out.

ADVANTAGE: newspaper.

 

If I thought redesigns lured readers and spelled affect as "effect," I wouldn't go around calling people idiots.

 

He spelled effect right, he just used it wrong, DyeP.

 

Well, not really, but I guess if your point is there is a word spelled "effect," then you'd be right.

 

Dye, I'll take the simple fact that you're only criticism of my post was my confusion of affect and effect as an indication that you accept my premise that redesigns can be good and bad. Otherwise you might have dealt with the actual issue. But, hey, I'm sure you feel much better about yourself because you found an error like that on a message board post. God knows we all edit those thoroughly.