I had the same thought about the poll on flag designs at the Rocky Mountain News. Might it be a bit embarassing if one of their rejected designs wins the popularity contest?
I picked up the Milwaukee paper today. The new look feels cleaner. It'll be interesting to see how they're going to handle the flag each day.

I had the same thought about the poll on flag designs at the Rocky Mountain News. Might it be a bit embarassing if one of their rejected designs wins the popularity contest?
I picked up the Milwaukee paper today. The new look feels cleaner. It'll be interesting to see how they're going to handle the flag each day.

I can't wait to see the inside of the Rocky. I have the same questions you do, Mark, but the one thing that stood out in my mind from John Temple's column was the "elimination" of jumps. If the stories are now going to read from one page to the next, that signals a larger shift in how the rest of the news is presented, doesn't it? I mean are we looking at front-of-the-book, department-style treatments for Nation/World news? Or does this jump thing simply mean that the stories on page three will continue on four at the same lengths and style and presentation as always? I'm rooting for the former.

I am sorry, but RMN looks like a very poor magazine. They must go very, very far away if they want be "conceived more like a magazine"

Thanks for running so many examples from today's Rocky relaunch (Ed: See those here). There are actually many spreads in the paper, particularly at the front of each section , which you don't show, and neither does the web site's ActivePaper PDF reader. But if you see the printed edition, the size, the layout-as-spreads, the increased color, the no-jump booking, the more informal headlines style, it begins to look like a magazine.

Of course it's not a great magazine on Day One, as "Diego" sourly notes. But it is a good start at a daily magazine, which anyone would find a big challenge. . . . As with all redesigns, let's give them a chance to get in stride.

* * *

John Temple has been talking about the redesign on his blog for months, and there have been many opportunities for readers to tell the paper what they want, and they have. The little poll on the logo development is part of a continuing process to bring readers in on the defintion of the Rocky brand. The question here is, "Is it The Rocky or is it Rocky Mountain News?" The staff is extremely interested to see how people react to that, because they went pretty far down the road (as you can see) to actually changing the name of the paper. And the defnition of a brand is never finished, nor is a paper's design. These are processes, not events.

By the way, Parkinson was not involved this time. The work was done by the great staff designer, Charles Chamberlin. I did a few, too, but Chas ran circles around me.

The font, Rocky, is now put to even better use. This is Matthew Carter's design, with some new condensed styles and a smaller "deck" range. (I love it when in a newspaper gets exactly the right typeface!)

Ok, perhaps I went too much far away with the "poor" epithet. But I am often frustrated with newspapers that try to evolve in magazines and stop just at the middle of the way. Editorial staffers at newspapers are ready to make great magazines. I am too impatient...

Beautiful, Roger. She's beautiful.