We've heard a lot lately about high-profile redesigns and sparkly new products in places like Tampa and Savannah and Bakersfield. But there's more going on out there than the latest Alan Jacobson or Mario Garcia joints.

Last month three small weeklies in Miami County, Kansas, the Miami County Republic, (5,000 circ.) the Osawatomie Graphic (3,000 circ.) and the Louisburg Herald (2,000 circ.) launched a new combined Weekend edition. It's aimed at younger readers and families who are moving into the county as Kansas City sprawl spreads south.

Publisher Greg Branson, a former assistant graphics editor and A1 designer at the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, says "We're trying to give our readers the news and features coverage you would typically see from a metro, but focused on our specific region. ... It's been fun seeing the staff really rise to the occasion to put out a product most people wouldn't expect from a community newspaper."

Branson continues:

So far it's been a lot of fun. Weekend has been something that both our younger and veteran reporters have really enjoyed and it has allowed them to really stretch. In community newspapers, you don't often get a chance to do these kinds of stories — for example: regular long-form, issue-based news stories, or features about trends and things to do, or, for sports, preview stories and features that aren't just gamers.

From the beginning, we have been specifically targeting younger readers in the 16 to 45 age range. Our coverage area is outside the southern edge of the Kansas City metro area and is really growing. But more people moving here wasn't translating into more readers. Our traditional weeklies - focused on the communities, the city governments, club notes, births and obits, and sports - didn't appeal as readily to somebody just moving here. In fact, it informal discussions I had with some, it made them feel like outsiders because they didn't know the people the stories were about like the people who grew up here or have lived and worked here a long time.

So the idea behind Weekend is to produce an newspaper that won't ostracize our new residents, but instead introduce them to the area and the communities through issue-based stories instead of nuts-and-bolts stories. The response has been very positive from both our target market and from our long-time readers. We're also still publishing our three weeklies earlier in the week for our "traditional" readers.

For all the tabloid-skeptical designers, the response to our 30-inch (60-inch for those of you on metro presses) tab format has been overwhelmingly positive. By going to to the larger size, we actually have more ad inches to sell than if we stayed with our regular 25-inch page size. Also, since we're using two-different sizes of paper, it allowed us to keep a standard 11p column for all of our pubs — 6 col in our 3 weekly broadsheets and 5 in Weekend. That way we don't have to resize ads for different pubs, unless they're taller than 14 inches.

Producing something like this in a community newspaper setting isn't really any more difficult, you just have to be smarter with your resources. We made a commitment to the visual aspect by hiring a full-time photographer for the three papers, but that has cost me a reporter at one of the three papers. But other than that, it's the same as larger paper — we're often scrambling for visuals. We try to take the Joe Scopin (Washington Times early '90s SND big-time award winnner) approach to using what we have on hand when it comes to design. I'm doing some illos and some graphics, but overall we're trying to make use of handouts and whatever the reporters and photographer can shoot or grab when they're covering stuff. It's been fun to see the reporters start focusing on what visuals are going to go with their stories.