The St. Pete Times unveils its new design tomorrow morning, but here, thanks to Assistant Managing Editor/Presentation Patty Cox is a look at a recent crop of before-and-after prototypes. Cox writes:

Tomorrow’s St. Petersburg Times will have a vibrant, colorful new look. The mission of our new design was to combine our rich tradition of journalistic service with some fresh ways of keeping Tampa Bay residents “in the know” while respecting their time. The improvements to the newspaper are the most sweeping in a decade. They include more than a dozen new features, including two new Sunday sections, and a conversion to the 50-inch web.

Here’s a guide to the new look.

In mentioning the $25 million spent on press upgrades and other improvements, Times CEO and Editor Paul Tash extols the Times’ independence from Wall Street.

The capital investments leading up to the new look were a lot to bite off, but they might have been more difficult elsewhere. Most newspapers are owned as part of big public companies. With shareholders pressing for quarterly profits, they have a hard time looking past the problems of the moment to the possibilities that lie ahead.

The Times, on the other hand, is an independent newspaper, one of the few remaining in American journalism. Like any other business, we like profits, too, and we’re on the prowl against needless expense. But we’re also willing to spend a buck today, even if the payoff won’t come right away.

More pages after the jump.

>At the Times, we’re betting on the future [St. Petersburg Times]

>The New Look [St. Petersburg Times]