The Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Wash. (Cowles family, 96,614 daily/124,250 Sunday), launches a redesign tomorrow (they're also narrowing the web width). Here's the full-page guide that ran in today's paper. And Editor Steve Smith wrote a column about it, but if you're not a subscriber, fuggedabout reading it. The consultants on the job, MGRedesign, have been blogging a bit about it, and promise more later. They've posted a draft of the 57-page design style guide (35M pdf), which has page samples from prototypes. I've collected some of them here with some pre-redesign pages to give a peek at what the new paper will look like.

Here's the design philosophy from the style book:

The newspaper industry adopted a new standard size in 2000, and The Spokesman-Review is one of the last major newspapers in the country to convert to the smaller format. In technical terms, it's called a web-width reduction. What that really means is the width of two newspaper pages is 50 inches instead of 55.

The smaller size was first adopted by the industry because it requires less newsprint and so is less expensive. But the format also proved enormously popular with readers because it is easier to handle. We think our readers will appreciate the change.

The smaller size presents both a challenge and an opportunity.

The challenge: Developing a new overall design that will work in the smaller format but still improve overall readability.

The opportunity: Creating a cleaner, easier-to-read newspaper that makes better use of color, graphics, news briefs and alternative storytelling techniques while providing an enormous amount of news and information in the space available.

A design team led by Geoff Pinnock, senior editor for design and presentation, has been at work on the new look for most of 2005. The media consulting firm, MG Redesign, provided assistance. Readers got a hint of things to come earlier this year with upgrades to the 7 section on Friday and the debut of the HOME section.

Now comes the entire newspaper redesign. Think of this book as your guide to our look and feel, and keep these ideas in mind when designing pages:

Simplicity. Use fewer colors, fewer typefaces, fewer secondary photos. Let the content shine through.

Write strong headlines and cutlines. These are the most important words in your newspaper.

Focus on alternative story forms. Ask, "How could we tell this story in a new way?"

Use white space. Let it frame the best story on the page.

For the type geeks, the redesign uses Hoefler & Frere-Jones typefaces Mercury Text (body copy), Guggenheim (headlines, section flags, labeling), Chronicle Display (headlines), Whitney (bylines, cutlines, some headlines) and Whitney Condensed (listings, graphics)

The 7 and Home sections debuted last fall: