Virginian-Pilot redesign

True about the grid-wide rail on the sports front, but compare it to the left side of the front page. That guy on the left is a columnist but they only gave him a grid. How can you run a whole story on a grid? Plus now they're columnists should be called gridists.

 

My initial thought: waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much white space

 

Agree on the white space. What's the point? The fonts are brutal. A completely lame effort.

 

Wow, I didn't even notice that at first. Looks like that "columnist" got about 100 words into his space this week. Nice.

 

I thought the guy on the cover is the editor, not a regular columnist. It seems like he has been using that small space to introduce the redesign.

 

And what about that freakin' huge ad on the sports front? What was that, a 6 x 2 1/2 or 6 x 3?

 

I was just as boggled by the two column house ad on Page 7.

 

People here bashed the LAT redesign, too, but from what I can see the LAT has gradually moved back to looking more like the LAT. Which is what usually happens anywhere.

Do I like this? No, I do not. But I also know that the Norfolk people are pretty sophisticated visually and that this probably isn't how it'll look for all eternity. For good or ill, they did a lot of creative things on their covers and it's hard to repress that for very long. I predict some backsliding after a couple of months to a bit more elegance.

 

From previous experience, most redesigns focus on the features section.
And I like the features front.
As far as the others fronts go, they took features thinking and applied it to the other sections.
The Oregonian used to run a rail called the Edge on its features front. It looks like that is what Sports is doing.
And I think as you see more people in the newsroom, who have design degrees, you'll see more and more unconventional designs. Some could argue that what we are really seeing is a return to a style of design that was popular decades ago. And I argue that Tim Harrower's modular approach was the death knell of good design. It meant that newspapers now lack a distinctive feel since they all look alike.
It's just different, and that isn't always the worst thing in the world.

 

Not for The Pilot. I actually think this is less than the usually use.

 

This is what Landmark blew all that money on? Should've saved a couple jobs in Greensboro instead.

 

No, they spend the money to add the word "readelicious" to the dictionary. The dictionary of SUCK, that is.