The Star Tribune of Minneapolis on Wednesday will publish an 8-page guide to its Oct. 12 print and online redesigns. You can find the pdf on this slick redesign page, which includes flash video of editors (including deputy managing editor/visuals Monica Moses) talking about the redesign. (Be warned, though, that when you click there, publisher Keith Moyer will immediate start yapping away through your speakers. If there's a stop or mute button, I couldn't find it.)

The page also has a blog and a funny "Q&A" by columnist James Lileks, who in addition to being a fine writer, is very smart about design and how it functions in our lives. (He's designed many of his own books.)

Q. Why? For God's sake, why?

A. Because we can. Because we must! Because enough time has passed that the specter of "New Coke" no longer strangles brave initiatives. Because the people in the design section have thick, detailed dossiers on the private lives of anyone who opposed their mad schemes. Because a few years ago we switched to a new software for writing and laying out the paper, requiring everyone to unlearn everything and master 4,932 counterintuitive steps, and now that we're all comfy with the new system it's time for a fresh steaming batch of HELL; keeps us perky. Because life is about redesign - really, your body is constantly shedding old cells and making new ones, renewing itself daily. Except for bones and warts. You want to get a sack of bones and warts delivered to your door daily? All right, then.

And because we really think you'll like it.

Q. Oh, rah-rah go Strib. How sad. Are you being a total company shill now?

A. Uh - yes. You have found out my terrible secret. I secretly believe that the purpose of the entire project was to come up with a paper universally despised by its customers, so you will all cancel and we go bankrupt and convert the building to condos. Of course we think you'll love it. That's the point.

>Redesign Guide [Star Tribune]