Good stuff, Gooch.

I panned the first batch of redesigned feature pages posted here on May 18, but I'm much more impressed with these news pages. There's a lot going on here, but the look is more cohesive than the first batch. I especially like the skybox treatments. The idea of putting a floater photo there (Local section) is a great idea and something I don't know if I've ever seen before. I also love the floating briefs column used on Local. The right-aligned bylines are an interesting choice -- I think they work. One of my earlier criticisms that I'm not ready to back away from is that the brightly colored page furniture is almost too much -- it competes with the photography and contributes to a sometimes cluttered look. But my overall impression has gone from negative to positive. I don't think this is ground-breaking newspaper design, but there are definitely some innovative ideas at work. I'd like to see a real printed copy.

(I was criticized for posting anonymously last time. Well I'm not just some flame-throwing troll. Why not respond to the substance of my comments, rather than simply dismissing them because they're posted anonymously. You wouldn't recognize my name if you saw it, so what difference does it make if it's attached to the post?)

Anonymous gentleman is right, from negative to positive, for a newspaper with the tradition of Kansas City Star is a fantastic design sometimes it is hard to fight against the tradition, but in this case the technology and the common sense triumphed

Great job. A vast improvement from the older design. The ragged right bylines look a little hinky to me, but overall, it looks great.

I wonder how these pages have reproduced on the press though? They always look better in online format. Maybe I'll see if we have a budget for a 1-month subscription just to check it out a little better.

Once again, great job!

Josh, it actually looks better on paper ... the colors are more subtle. The pdf format has them a little too strong and overbearing. But the reproduction has most of us still whistling when the roughs come off. Thank you for the comments.

The most impressive changes are on the inside pages. The covers are basically the same old stories splashed with color and bigger promos. Inside, there's actually more, different and more diverse stuff to read.
I suppose anything might have been better than what was, but until the thought process changes on what actually goes IN the paper, we can dress it up all we want and customers will still be uninspired to actually buy it.

Well said, Joe.

I have seen the finished edition of today, everything is very well, the section of opinion and the others seems fantastic, the only thing that I do not like much the section of Preview was, it is supposed it was going to have more color and more photos but it seems boring. For the rest it seems fantastic

If anyone is interested in seeing photos of The Kansas City Star's new press facility:

http://web.mac.com/chrism70/iweb/Site/StarPrint.html