Gotta say I'm not a fan of Tribune Century -- either before or after this redesign. I think it's too tall and narrow, and gives the Tribune's pages a crowded feel (the wider-looking Light version is more appealing). That said, this change definitely looks like an incremental improvement. I can't believe they were using nine headline fonts heretofore. NINE!! Sheesh.

Yep, still looks like crap. Note: When you're making a contrasty, bloated typeface "lighter," don't make the thinnest bits (you know, the ones that turn to white when you squint) even thinner along with the fat parts...this isn't letterpress. What are they going for, Bodoni Condensed? Ugly.

Bitch and moan. My word, folks... it's a lovely font!

Though I should withhold judgement until I see it in-situ, as it's all about useability.

I think the new one looks much cleaner & crisper than the old one.

So they ran out of time in 2001 in their to get the HEADLINE FONT right?

Is that not a collosal admission of mismanagement?

They certainly had enough time to produce the smoke and mirror 'Special Section' about the redesign. Complete with brass band and requisite chest beating huzzahs . . .

But they admit now they 'ran out of time' on the design element every reader will expereince on every page. . . . The HEADLINE.

I mean, hear you are redesigning and you don't spend enough effort getting an expensive, custom cut headline font perfected?

Puh-lease - the Trib spin control in the lede of this blog is amusingly transparent.

Hey, "tribwatch," suppose you ordered a dish in a restaurant and when it came, you weren't entirely happy with it. Yet you ate it anyway because it was passable and you had, say, $100 theater seats and no time to get a new meal. Would that be "collosal" mismanagement on your part? No, it would be a calculated decision to make the best of an imperfect situation.

The Tribune folks can certainly defend themselves, and I speak from no direct knowledge of their redesign. But.

Anybody who's ever worked on a redesign of a newspaper knows there are thousands of details that need to come together. Everything from the nameplate to agate stock listings, computer formats, page templates and color palates. Not to mention content revisions and staff training. Also, if you're narrowing the page width (as the Tribune did in 2001) there are significant press and advertising implications. All of these things have to come together by a certain point (we like to call this a "deadline"). And, as happens every day in this deadline business, there comes a time when you just have to get the damn thing on the street. And if there are some things that are less than perfect, well, so be it. Improvements can be made later.

It matters not how much planning you do, the grand scheme of a redesign rarely survives first contact with newsprint unchanged. Something will come up in live production that you did not forsee in your planning, and you will need to rethink some element of the redesign. Nobody at the Trib said they got the headline font "wrong." They said that when they took it into production, they felt it needed "more work."

Also, be assured the people who produced the special section were not the people who designed the type, so that's a silly argument. And what's wrong with a "brass band and requisite chest beating huzzahs"? This is otherwise known as "promotion," something which businesses do to help them become and remain successful. It's also something that many newspapers, to my mind, don't do nearly enough of.

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