Chicago's RedEye made some changes to its design and structure in November, and Design Director Chris Courtney was kind enough to send samples and elaborate.

We had one goal in mind for the redesign when we set out. Get more RedEye into RedEye without necessarily adding more pages.

The publication has evolved quite a bit since its launch back in aught-2. When it started, RedEye was a quick read that gave you just enough info to be dangerous on a range of topics. It had personality and ambition but it hadn't had enough time to grow into anything. Three years later, it's tackling topics others publications have forgotten (i.e. Chicago Rape crisis series; Porch Collapse series, etc.), developing scores of RedEye personalities (i.e. Whizzer, the prognosticating pooch; Kyra Kyles, our local commuting column; Jason Steele, our gay sex columnist, etc.) and introducing Chicago to the Sudoku phenomenon. Not to mention Martin Gee's Sudoku Ninja (stuffed ninjas sold separately)

Some touches of the initial design, created by the uber-talented Mike Kellams, are still evident in the new look. We didn't want to change what RedEye felt like to people. But the original design sometimes held us back from a content perspective. Anyone in the business will tell you that's a bad thing.

So we mocked, fried, dried, stir-fried, deep-fried and broiled down what we had before. We took into careful consideration what we learned from our reader research. Tossed out a fair share of the paper on the bet that our new ideas could beat the old ones. Kicked the tires and set it free. Oh, and I prayed a little.

The process start to finish took three months. We could have made it happen in two.

Now the paper has pacing that didn't exist before, multiple spreads everyday that weren't possible before and more original RedEye content than ever.