Is that actually a purple nameplate?

Oh, man, that is, in one word: ugly.

The olderone, even with the solid name plate, looked much better.

Monty Burns, huh.

Oh, come on now, there are noticeable improvements. The labeling system helps build in some white space and the color palate is greatly improved. Come on, compare the graphic and its seventy-two colors on the left to the one on the right and tell me the redesign is still ugly? And while the new flag might be kind of purple you have to agree it's better than the one with the starburst and the American flag. With no offence to the NWH, they weren't the best designed paper in the Chicago area, and they still aren't now, but even trying a redesign is a step in the right direction. It's their first issue, they'll work things out and I'll bet it improves.

Nicole, I agree. It's bound to get better. But they should work on that brownish color (that shouldn't be the whole thing). They should try breaking it up into sections (brown, pink, purple, what the heck).

Also, I heard the Grey Lady was going through some redesign (smaller web width). Any truth to that, anyone?

Time after time I get confused ... is the redesign the one of the left or the right?

Sorry, Bill. Should've been more clear. New page is on the right.

And the rail makes a comeback yet again. Does anyone know if readers use a summary rail while reading? I’d like to know of any studies that show that it works.

It still feels busy - in a bad way. The center story on churches is lost. It just doesn't have the strength to compete with the other high contrast items on the page. Maybe a screen behind the package? The head over the picture is really lost, it seems to me (I know, I'm critiquing an individual one-time design rather than the redesign, but the ability to create effective and easy-to-follow pages day in and day out ought to be a main goal of any redesign process).
And the little double arrow symbols on the left teasers column - any chance they won't they look dated in a week or two?
OK, it is an improvement, but it needs more work.
And here's a request for this site: publish a PDF of the paper a couple of weeks after the redesign has debuted, so we can see what tweaking has been done. I'm sure the Herald redesighn, like most, is an evolving one.

It seems a fair amount better to me. Is there any study that says a summary rail does not work? There are more entry points into the paper itself and to my eyes it seems more modern and useful.

The new combination of fonts seems more coherent and complementary.

We at the Kane County Chronicle, the sister paper to the NWH, are redesigning in the same vein, set to launch Jan 19.

We're trying to learn from the NWH's mistakes, and i guarantee you our new nameplate looks better than theirs :) I'm curious if this blog will cover our launch too?

It would be helpful to have Ric Ekiman's articals in your busness section.