They are SO ready to go Tab with this paper.

1) They learned that they could put local news right behind Page One - and not ophan it off into separate section.

and now THIS

2) segmented, SHORT stories, neatly organized, highly visual, and broken apart by NIches.

Ahem, these are a couple of hallmarks of a well-design urban TAB or news magazine.

And these are more substantial themes to follow than just adding a "One-Minute 'insert your newspaper name here'" kind of mega package to your paper. It's clear to me that the editors have really researched and bought into Tabloid and magazine editing and thinking here.

Reminds me of the Maga-paper concept that has been executed so brilliantly for years in S'pore (And followed to a great degree recently by a certain paper in Canada)

So really - why aren't MORE people thinking like TAB editors with their broadsheets?

Great stuff Merc!

I'm going to have to disagree with Mr. Montgomery. And as a 31 y.o. male, I'm just the target market that papers are trying to pull in. I really liked the Mercs redesign of the front page, but the A+E section? These are two of the ugliest pages I've ever seen. The A+E section has always been fun to read. It has one of the best done street style columns that I've ever seen in a newspaper (where they pick someone off the street with great style and ask them where they bought there clothes.) But this design? Ugh. What's whit all those heavy lines and rounded boxes? It's very early web or late 90s in my opinion. Nothing forward or progressive or interesting about it at all. I'm all for multiple points of entry. But this has so many doors of exactly the same weight that I don't know where to start. In other words, it's busy. And heavy handed. I'd say go back to the drawing board on this section. How about something more subtle?

Maybe you'll like the Sunday section's subtle style. I'll send it later this afternoon and see if Mark wants to post it. Street style remains a part of the section and we have a lot of other cool moments in the section's interior (no heavy lines or rounded boxes to be found).

But Robb is right about what we're trying to do, namely build skills for new ways to tell stories across the newspaper. We are opening up all sorts of devices for our "new narratives" project and this Friday section is one way. The story containers force new thinking in writing and editing, which is important to us.

So ... maybe we need to rethink the design of this section a bit if it feels heavy-handed, but I'm willing to give it a try as a step in the evolution. We can certainly refine the design as we go along, but changing the way we have always reported and edited is a much bigger nut to crack. We have to walk before we can run.

Dear Matt Mansfield,

The new design is, in a word, ugly. I liked old design, which had actual content... you know, words and paragraphs.

Ugly is pretty harsh.
I enjoy it, but I wonder if it will loose its freshness quickly. How about a centerpiece on occasion? I imagine you've planned different things to do with this.
Matt is right - the key is getting the writers and editors to look for alternate story forms.
P.S. - Video game coverage! Oh god! Yes!

I have to be honest. I HATE the capital letters. I don't like the fact that everyone looks the same. There's no hierarchy. Perhaps readers who look beyond what we look at -- which is probably just about everyone -- won't see it but as far as a redesign goes I don't think this is the way your paper should go. Your paper was always gorgeous in its design. This is completely the opposite.

Alternative story forms?

These pages seem to be mostly info boxes, lists, capsule reviews and reefers. No offense, but if all I wanted were factoids and teasers, I'd turn on a television.

Very nice crop/wrap on the bug-eyed critter, though.

The reader reviews are an intriguing idea. But what are you going to keep a P.R. flack from posting a review, then blurbing it with "San Jose Mercury News" as the attribution?

I meant: "How are you..."

Sorry.

You guys are way too harsh on these pages -- criticizing their strengths a bit too much.

"No offense, but if all I wanted were factoids and teasers, I'd turn on a television."

The biggest criticisms I'm noticing from this thread are the intense hatred of short form, despite the fact that this design is very similar to feel to what Maxim and the Sun-Times' entertainment sections have been doing for years. If anything, the reference to late-90s design is proper because it takes some of its biggest cue from some of the strongest points of late-90s design: tech magazines like Wired and Next-Generation.

It's entertainment. I don't know if you guys have noticed lately, but entertainment is not mired in the short form. Video games are jittery and fun. Music as become a pastiche of cut and paste, and today's TV shows are extremely fast-paced. Heck, the web is the very definition of short "attention span". We've gone far beyond the days of "Moon River" ruling the radio and Andy Griffith (even in his second "Matlock" wind) ruling the set.

We can't be using 30" stories to talk about the White Stripes anymore.

Correction: Entertainment IS mired in the short form.

I don't read Maxim either, Ernie. It's terrible to look at and isn't forward thinking at all. Now Details, I will read. In part because it's beautiful to behold.
Also, remember this is the paper in the heart of Silicon Valley, and for whom getting a readership up and down the Bay Area is of utmost importance. Outside of New York, this is probably one of the most demanding markets in terms of design. Think IDEO, Apple, et al. So it does them no favors to look to design conventions that are now 7 years old -- like rounded boxes.
I PERSONALLY have no problem with short stories. In fact, the Merc does that REALLY well. It's great to read while in transit. Something to read while waiting for BART or the other and frequent short train and bus rides that Bay Area commuters find themselves on. Plus, they have way better comics than the other papers. When I lived in the Bay Area, the Merc was my preferred commuter read. But I don't see this design sample as really a step forward.
I'd be interested to see future stabs at this section.

"We can't be using 30" stories to talk about the White Stripes anymore."

for what it's worth: I just spent the last two hours reading Spin from cover to cover. Although this was the 100 greatest albums issue, thus written in short form, I execute this routine monthly--with longer-than-30-inches stories on the White Stripes.

Granted, I speak of monthy, but I stick by my thinking that people are looking for both. Give me a 30" story about pine trees that's well written and I'll read it. Round up the days events in iraq in a briefs column and I'll read that, too.

People want the quick stuff in the morning so they feel informed on the way to work while relaxing in the evening with, you know, pine trees.

Matt, the pages look great, I think. I think the tech-design boom has been over long enough that there's almost a kitch to the look of this section (though not too much) and I think readers will appreciate being let in on that homage. What I like most is the use of color. The Merc is one of the few papers that uses it well, and this section is no exception.

So there,
nicole

DC1974: I'd disagree with you about Maxim/Stuff. Sure, design-wise, it's not setting the world ablaze, but if you look at the magazine as a whole, there's a maximum of one long-form story in the ENTIRE issue. On top of that, Maxim's infographics are funny, innovative, edgy and informative in a way that no other magazine really approaches them. Unlike Playboy, you really will read the articles in Maxim, because they're funny!

I think you have to consider this design less on an innovation level. Does this work? Is it really the right way to cover entertainment? My vote is yes. There's really no reason to ignore a Ford Taurus when the engine still moves about very smoothly. Rounded rectangles may not be as fresh as they were in 2000, but they're still visual workhorses that get the job done, just like framing elements. If they weren't, Apple wouldn't use them on their website.

Nicole: Magazines are really better suited for a 30" story. The Internet is better suited for it -- I'll read a feature piece on pitchforkmedia.com about the Hold Steady. A newspaper? It's going to be thrown away in a matter of hours, most likely, unless it's a weekend guide, where it'll likely have a shelf life of 72 hours.

30" stories are just not the way to treat the band of the hour or the movie of the week in a newspaper anymore.

I didn't mind the Merc taking some new approaches. It looks like content was added so I disagree with others commenting "Where's the content." Entertainment needs to stay fresh and appealing. I saw the real paper of the a+e interactive cover.

I didn't agree with their use of all caps on the left rail. It looks okay on the pdf but it's hard to read when you hold it in your hands. A colleague of mine suggested the centerpiece body copy is too large, had to hold it back to read.

The circle frames are fine for a few elements and maybe overused for some. I can imagine some of these issues working themselves out over a few weeks of designing the section. Keep going guys.

Overall, I feel the design is a little too modular and lacks the element of surprise, allowing for something break out and capture my attention first.

Ernie: I just want to make a short comment. I never disagreed with you that the way to cover A+E stories is in short form. Here in DC, I read the Express, in part because it's quick to read and it's pretty humorous. In fact, I'd say that's one thing the Merc has ALWAYS done well. Or at least since I started reading it, about 7 years ago. Maxim certainly didn't invent this wheel. If anything it came from Q and the other British magazines where the editors at Maxim and Rolling Stone have all come. In fact, Details is written in the same way. Nothing is longer than a couple of pages and most things are much shorter. But Maxim is an ugly magazine. Details, Rolling Stone, even Q are not. And I was talking simply about design. These sample pages don't do anything for me. In part because of the heavy rules and in part because of the overuse (IMHO) of the rounded boxes. And I'm not so sure they 'work' they way they did in 1998, where they were used to convey leading edge thinking. Today, they look old fashioned in a "used to be hip but now have become irrelevant" way. Crazy me to think that a redesign should look forward and not to the very recent past. In the way that MTV2 or Urban Outfitters is leading edge. (Well, maybe not THAT leading edge, but you get the idea.)

The pages do feel overly packaged.
The problem seems to be more poor editorial choices than inappropriate design. Obviously, one has to design to the content they are given. And all the pages are full of nonlocal, commercially driven content. So, the design reflects the section as a collection of reviews of disparate items.
I say drop culture and art from the flag, and move it to right before the classified section.
It's just an entertainment section, and should admit to that.

I love the two centerpiece packages. I like heavy box frames, the cutouts work well with the screens and are attention-grabbing.

As a designer, I "get" the left and right rails, but they seem overdone, almost TOO tied in with the rest of the design. I would've preferred picking ONE overriding design element - rounded corners, colors, caps - and see that used to tie in the page without making it scream at you. Why not make the left rail boxes outlined in yellow, like the fourth box down? I think they distract from the cool CP boxes. After looking at this page for a few minutes I feel like I need a cigarette.

BTW - anyone else notice the uneven spacing of the black tab on the two CPs? The top one looks like it's 2p further in from the left corner than the bottom one. If you're going to use repetitive tagging elements, make them consistent, please.