Paul, Neil, Patty, Amy and the whole team who brought the new pages of the Times together. A huge undertaking and a really nice look. Congrats to all!
Cheers! ...Sue

As another ex-Times designer/editor from long ago, congratulations on FINALLY pulling it off...pagination, 50-inch AND new fonts. It's definitely an improvement, especially the fonts.

Let us take a moment and mourn the death of that god-forsaken Univers-wannabe type that is now gone . . . .

Or not.

Great job guys. Very nice work with the color.

Changes, in my opinion, I don't see any.

Hmmm...I agree with Tom.

Oh, yeah. Now I see.

"City" is now "Local."

Nice job. Raises all around.

Improve style is different, redesign is totally different, in this case, is the first one.

Granted, a redesign is not just a change of typefaces, but a redesign doesn't have to be a reinvetion either. There's clearly a new, if subtle, feel to these pages, and I think they did a thoughtful job. Bakersfield and KC are interesting, and they seem to be able to keep it up on a daily basis, but I'll take utility over flash any day, and apparently so will St. Pete. Nice work, folks.

Congratulations to Patty and her team such a well thought-through update. What you can't see here is that St. Pete now has some of the best designed inside pages around. Well done! Now go have a well-deserved glass of wine and get some rest!

Just kind of curious as to why those Poynter "readability series" typefaces were not used. Isn't the Times owned by Poynter?

Hmm! the club again!, improve is the real word, colors, screens, some logos in columns, big pictures, please, good job! but is not impress, too vertical, simple, nothing new, in other words look like another regular US newspaper.

The last revolutionary act in newspapers was probably USA Today. Or maybe, the new tabloids and free metros. If these redesigns, as nice as they are, aren't all that revolutionary, what will be? Any thoughts on what a newspaper will do that has the impact that USA Today once had?

The last revolutionary act in newspapers was probably USA Today. Or maybe, the new tabloids and free metros. If these redesigns, as nice as they are, aren't all that revolutionary, what will be? Any thoughts on what a newspaper will do that has the impact that USA Today once had?

How to match the impact USA Today had? Reinvent the newspaper. A new color palette and replacing some sans-serif fonts with other sans-serif fonts isn't going to do it.
I'm not bashing any of the redesign efforts we see on this site (this particular one seems to be a nice evolutionary design), but the next big leap, I think, wil be a bold re-imagination of what a newspaper is.
It no longer stands alone - in nearly every market, it is a content partner with a web site and perhaps even an affiliation with television. But what is its role?
The Link (for a free tab) seems to offer a fresh take, particularly on its inside pages. Kansas City Star's new look seems to go beyond mere window dressing and the new web editions offered by the Guardian and El Pais demonstrate new thinking.
But most dailies seem stuck in their ruts.
How can they continue to serve our democracry as a free press while maintaining economic viability, particularly in light of the public's thirst for junk food?
I think it will take more than a few color screens and a handful of blogs where columnists regurgitate to re-invent the daily newspaper.
Realtors today are struggling in an age in which most people have figured out how to buy and sell their homes themselves. Today's newspaper still seems to want to be a waiter, delivering us our news. But the rest of the world of information has changed and many of us get our data from a huge variety of places. Do we still need waiters (even ones in new outfits) or do we need guides?
What do we (readers/consumers/citizens) need from a newspaper?
That question ought to guide the reinvention. I worry that most of what has led the most recent transformation has been a combination of economics and machinery (new presses).
Sorry, I've gone way off track here. Again, I'm not criticizing the redesigns I've seen here - many of them are very creative. But the posts about revolution got me thinking.

Revolution and reinvention are good goals. I'm not knocking them--and I'll bet St. Pete isn't done yet. But people both inside and outside the newsroom aren't going to stand for an out-of-nowhere drastic change. We have to get them used to things in steps. This looks like a couple of steps to me. I don't think anyone in our industry isn't dreaming about how they would make a newspaper if they could, but in actuality you have to tread lightly, if not for traditionalists then for the money guys. I'm frankly sick of waiting, but that's the way it has to be. One day we're gonna wake up and some unknown paper in some unknown town is going to totally blow us away, because that's where these sorts of things have the best chance of starting.

With USA Today you had a large ego with lots of money who defied the industry.

I like the redesigns and it's always nice to see a cleaner, fresher design. But I wondered if we could advance the usual response of "Where's the revolution?" to "What should the revolution be?" I have a hunch that the real revolution will be that there should be many kinds of newspapers, not just the Bakersfield sound, or everybody goes tabloid.

Suppose the challenge is that we want to be revolutionary while designing on paper. There are two kinds of papers I would like to see:

1. Employee- or foundation-owned, Berliner-sized, one story per page, jumping rarely but always to the next right-hand page, completely local except perhaps for a one-page national and world survey in the form of Herb Caen's three-dot columns, with magazine production values and strong documentary and investigative journalism, including powerful photo stories and alternative story form such as comic book storytelling.

Or,

2. A newspaper that simply acknowledges that people who still want their news on paper are not the ones who go online or watch a lot of cable news, and so it's best to give each kind of reader what they want: A robust Web site for online users and a "traditional newspaper for traditional people," which doesn't even care if a story has been "out all day," on the Web, or on TV, because these readers don't care either. Of course, this paper should run lots of health stories so these readers will live as long as possible.

Most redesigns to me look like putting new hubcaps on a Buick.
Where's the innovation? The problem is the newspaper form itself.

St. Pete isn't know for their standout design -- they're known for their standout storytelling. As for the "money guys," I don't think Poynter's breathing down anybody's necks. (I too wondered why no Poynter faces?)

They've made some great recent hires, and I agree that this is a nice update, and baby steps are best. Because honestly -- it's the No. 1 circ paper in Florida. What's broken? The Bakersfield look isn't for everyone -- there is no "right" answer to the front-design question.

It wasn't that long ago, though, that St. Pete WAS known for it's standout design.

Folks, is simple, you have to design with your brain and with your heart, that mean "passion" but now nobody have passion, every page is automatic, every designer is a robot, only flow the text and pic in style sheet, and that it, go home.!, If you work with passion everything will be different. Is not money, is not design revolution, is passion...simple like that.

The "revolution" is to put Local in the A section. To reduce the format to tabloïd and, why not, US letter. To be full color. To stop to print news that is already all over the web, TV/cable and radio for free. To stop to write articles full of bla bla. To give contextual information and explanation to news. To give local sense to national and international issues. To make journalists think in more than one dimension (text). And to stop to think that a print newspaper is a massmarket product. To change grey to blue and beige to green, it's decoration, not "revolution". As visual journalists, we have the responsibility to help newsrooms think differently, and most of the time we lose the battle. Unfortunately, the web is banging on the door and the battle is becoming more and more complex. While readers and advertisers are leaving slowly but consistently the boat.

Well put, Jeff.

Looks nice online... clear and crisp... in reality, the new and improved St. Pete Times paper that lands on my lawn each morning is full of coloful ink that bleeds from one page to the next in almost every section. This is most noticeable where the first page of each section bleeds its photos onto the last page of the previous section and vice versa. Looks very cheap...