Pretty, lovely, fine, fair, comely, pleasant, agreeable, acceptable, adequate, satisfactory, nice, benign, harmless, innocuous, innocent, largely unobjectionable, safe, forgettable.

Does the weather page have all its content on its side? Awesome.

One of the things i like about the Pilot is the unpredictable nature of the design.

i like being surprised as a reader. Too many newspapers rely on on a boring locked in place grid design with a place for everything.

The Pilot doesn't always get it right but they arn't afraid to go out there and take a chance on something.

We've all talked about how to attract younger readers to our product- this i think is the way to go

The Virginian-Pilot has made a poor decision.

The former Virginian-Pilot newspaper design was a critically acclaimed paper. Other papers from all over the country looked to the Pilot for leadership and direction. While the former design had some section navigation issues and minor masthead legibility issues, this major overhaul was not warranted!

What probably happened was that a small handful of overly enthusiastic editors and layout designers formed a pact and pushed and pushed for a new redesign... maybe for even a couple years. Then was finally granted permission to do so and went overboard.

I like it. I think it would be a poor decision were the new design not good. But it is.

I've always admired the Pilot's design and found it fresh. With the befores and afters next to each other on this post, I somehow see the old Pilot and think "Oh, that *is* a little stale, isn't it?"

So the new design has made itself this new thing that I want to explore.

Also, I still recognize it as the Pilot. The lightness, the attention to detail. I don't feel like anyone's trying to pull one over on me.

Brava, I'd say.

Hi Nic. The Weather page runs on the back of the Business section and is turned sideways so the reader can flip it 90 degrees and read it as a horizontal.

Overall, I really like the new design.

A1 is the only place I get a little wishy-washy about. I don't like the new nameplate. It looks like they stretched out the old one. Had they just enlarged it and aligned it to the left, I would have been fine.

And the script font in the date bar. I do not like that at all. I think was the absolutely worst choice to make for that font. Ick.

I love everything else though. The typography in the section headers and grid styles are all very clean. I feel a great sense of sophistication when I look at these pages.

Bob,

That's really neat. I had wanted to do that with a comics page when I was tweaking a design, but it was inside and people said it would have been confusing.

I hope it's positioned so the fold is the bottom, that way the section doesn't accidentally fall out.

I don't want to get a flame thread going on this this page at all. But, I'll throw out a little food for thought on the redesign.
In short, The Pilot really needed a redesign, badly.
There's a bit of mythologizing of The Pilot that goes on, particularly in the need (or lack thereof) for a redesign, not only in comments here but in comments leading up to the rollout. I worked on the old design for several years, and it had its strengths, but structurally it had many weaknesses, namely a formality and deeply woven "old newspaper" think that often collided with the more freewheeling, graphic style of presentation. And it simply lacked modern visual sophistication, in particular with the Kmart versions of Bodoni and Franklin that made up its basic fontography. In addition, much of the furniture and inside pages had not joined the modern world because it was designed for an outdated production system, so many of the inside pages were generic and verged on junky on occasion because the tools were not there. It was hard to be sophisticated when you have generic Bodoni horizontally scaled to 115 percent to work with. The new paper is a testament what happens when you give people better tools to work with.
I'm just a Pilot reader these days, and I sat flipping through today's paper on a coffee shop. I'm in awe of the level of detail in Pilot 2.0 and the consistency of design throughout. It looks so "now" in a way that the old one did not.
Roger Ebert says that the only way to properly critique a movie is to make another movie. And he has a point. I did basic design work on a new publication that launched last fall, so I know the difficulty of a project like The Pilot's remake. It's now a very nicely executed newspaper, and that's probably a letdown for some. I suspect some expected something else (3-D holograms, perhaps?) Oh, well. I hope that doesn't get in the way of recognizing what's here.
As a closing thought, let me say that I think it's fine to not like parts of the design. Sometimes when things break new ground they are challenging, and they don't immediately grab you. That script is really different, but this is also Virginia, so in a weird way it makes sense. Six months from now, it'll just be normal.

To me, turning the weather page sideways makes what should be a functional page almost unusable. I would find it a chore to turn the page on its side to find a specific piece of information. As if the broadsheet wasn't wide enough, now it's suddenly twice as wide. It's a beautifully designed page, I just don't think it's practical for many readers. Has there been any feedback on that?

Deborah and the crew at the Pilot deserve a lot of credit for doing something new, better and different. I love the openness of the page flags and the flexibility of the refers. I love the limited number of items on each page. It's great to see a paper using white space and structure and classic typography instead of upside-down "L" color tints, crammed pages, and screaming type. So much of what passes for redesigns these days has no sense of place, no understanding of content and no staying power. Whether you love it or not, this effort shows style, class, sophistication, intelligent thought. I suspect it has staying power as well and will stand the test of time. All the kind of qualities we should strive for.

Thanks for watering down the paper again.

Maybe you kids can take your, er, (ital) skills (ital) and pimp the pilot web page.

Yeah. That's gonna pay your salaries.

Isn't it?

It was a little unsettling to hear that the V-P redesigned. I thought it would be impossible for one of the nation's best-designed papers to look even better, and I expected -- as someone said so succinctly -- "upside-down "L" color tints."

So, that said, I think the V-P's shown us the most drastic redesign this year -- and thank God it's not another Mario Garcia clone or a flimsy rendition of another paper (shame on the Star-Telegram for stealing many of the Star Tribune's aesthetics -- don't deny it!).

The overall look is distinct and, I would imagine, allows designers to draw up layouts unencumbered by imaginary news holes.

I'm not entirely sold on the whole new look yet. However, as a daily reader of the Pilot, I love the new weather page.

Hi. I`m a newsdesigner from Kosovo and I visit newsdesigner.com a lot. I thing that the light font used in the section names is a pretty bold choice. Othervise the design is wonderful as always. Let us see if it is going to stick to people!

David Putney makes some great points, thanks David! It was really easy for us to look at the redesign of the V-P as something that will "shake up the design world" with its splash and dash. Well, they did shake it up, by making it more, well, designed (not decorated), very sophisticated with typography and presentation, and smart with typography and use of white space. But they didn't break out the crayon box but rather focused on letting CONTENT come through, not someone's notion of good aesthetic "design". They rethought the paper and at the same time grounded design fundamentals into a redesign that will last for a long time.

I would expound upon Bill Ostendorf said, but he said it so well it would be a crime to try.

Whatever one thinks of the new design, one thing that clearly did not get redesigned: The Pilot's sense of adventure and informed risk-taking.

A design merely gives a publication with tools. It's the people who use those tools to make something work or not.

Same people = same thoughtful, regularly high-impact visual journalism.

Sorry all, I have to disagree, the mastheads for the sections are too light and make them all look like “Sex in the City” fronts. Different and risk taking is good, but what are you conveying to the reader?
Typography and weight are important to denote what is feature and what is news. It seems like every section is a feature section except for 1A.
This is a major problem with most journalism school designers who have never taken a course on typography and it's meaning or history and how different typefaces were created for different uses.
In a visual culture people may not be able to say why something looks wrong, but will have a feeling about it anyway.
The redesign looks like a decoration around the content to make it look “new” and really doesn’t help in navigation or anything else.
Also, Allcaps headlines are the same in print as in e-mails or chat, if you use it too much it’s like you are screaming at the reader.

Here's some numbers from a recent survey on the new VP weather page, but first, yes, when the page id turned sideways to read, the fold of the paper is on the bottom.

We asked 177 people the following question: "Do you think the redesigned weather page is an improvement over the old version?"

71% responded Yes
12% responded No
17% Other (did not respond Y/N but did comment on it)

The comments in favor the redesign were about the color, organization and format. The majority of the comments against the new format were about the sideways layout.

The VP did a a similar measurement of the weather page before the redesign at the end of February, here's how some of the readers responded:

Read again - Up from 64% to 68%
Meaningful - Up from 63% to 65%
Useful info - Up from 96% to 99%
Looked closely - Up from 57% to 70%
Emotional reaction - Up from 16% to 32%
Important content - Up from 68% to 73%
Well written - Up from 44% to 57%
Interesting - Even at 63%
New information - Down from 74% to 65%
Easy to understand - Down from 78% to 67%
Suitable for me - Down from 67% to 65%

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY:

Overall impression - Up from 59% to 66%
Read article - Up from 53% to 73%

I don't know exactly how some of those measurements are defined, but with "Overall impression" up 7% and "Read article" up 20%, it looks like the weather page was somewhat of a success. But I'm a little disheartened that the measurement for "Easy to understand" went down 11%. I hope thats because everyone was used to the previous weather page and knew where everything was and needed to get comfortable with the new one.

I think the new look is refreshing but not so sure it works on all levels quite as well.

--Love the super cell lede on the front.

--New VP mast is not better. Would have made the old one slightly larger only.

--Section masts are better, but retro. Former masts looked quite unsavory. Change was good here.

--the new, wider franklin does not make sense to me. It brings an inconsistency to the font family. I think a better solution would have been to drop this one altogether.

When I heard the Pilot had redesigned, I couldn't WAIT to see what they'd come up with.

I like it. It's clean and has more of a magazine look to it. I would've never said the old Pilot was stodgy, but compared to the redesign, it looks stodgy.

My one problem with it is the script font on the days of the week in the masts. It's jarring and doesn't fit with the rest of the design -- formal and froofy dropped into the middle of informal and sleek. That's a big "What were they thinking?" thing for me.

Fine points of fontography aside, I appreciate a design that is:

a. Distinctive, clearly separating the paper from competitors.
b. Arguably in tune with its community -- those section flags, which I found odd at first, grow on me as an echo of the masts of sailing ships in Norfolk's harbor.
c. Defiantly inconsistent, but in the minor details only. The italic days make me wonder if I could tell at a glance in the print version what I was getting, but quirks like this can make a paper look less corporate and more like the product of actual humans.

I admire the Pilot because they're always ready to discard any furniture or pre-conceived ideas about what a newspaper should look like, in order to tell their stories in the smartest, most expressive, accessible and engaging way. Nothing they've introduced here would hinder them in that regard. If anything, their inside pages especially look better structured and more modern.
No other paper is as jaw-droppingly bold. Keep it up, Deborah and everyone, and congratulations.

About that script ...
It is Font Bureau's Sloop, BTW. It's meant to evoke "Old Virginia" and the writing of Thomas Jefferson or George Washington.

Now that I've had time to digest the redesign, I personally love it.
Everything is done so incredibly smart and maintains that 'outside of the box' feel the pilot has always had.
There is no preconceived notion on how anything should look. All around, it feels as though function took over where old newspaper trends use to exist.
The paper as a whole looks so much more like a 'product' rather than just a newspaper. If I were a reader, it'd be tough to toss out yesterday's paper.
At this point, I even like the scripted day and the new flag. They both are so retro that they feel refreshing. These are not things you've seen for many years and they are simply style choices that do not hurt functionality.
Great job to all that contributed to this.

I wish more papers had the cojones to offer its content in such a bold, yet elegant manner.

I feel like chiming in at this point won't offer any insight, however, I am anyways.

Being from Montana/Alaska, I have no idea what Hampton Roads is like.

The old Pilot looked like most daily newspapers, albeit, the Pilot was always a benchmark of what good news design could be.

The new Pilot however, has more personality, and not to echo Mario Garcia, but a newspaper should be designed to reflect its community. Listening to Deborah talk on the website about the open and spacious urban waterfront of Hampton Roads, I instantly understood the justification for the typeface choices.

My first reaction when looking at the new design was, "Wow, I feel like I should be sipping Mint Juleps by the seaside." I had no clue when I thought that, that HR was a seaside community. But it is now extremely evident where the Pilot originates.

Josh

Just wanted to take a minute to say "thank you" for all the thoughtful comments. We are into week 3 of the redesign and it's starting to feel more like "home" or should I say "Hampton Roads". It's always wonderful to see prototypes take wing and become reality. I assume most of you have only seen the pages posted here which are day one of week one. I'll share a bit of our newer work in a day or so.

Cheers.

As a former employee, subscriber and reader of The Virginian-Pilot, I believe the redesign of the pages looks horrible.

Did you let the interns do this?

This does not reflect the community in its diversity...this reflects just bad design.

I came back for a visit and found too many fonts for one page, defective border spacing and lack of overall aesthetics with the paper.

All the positive comments on here were from planted Pilot employees. C'mon guys all those comments from you were totally transparent. The design has a feel for a bad 1990s website. Its too choppy and it does not do justice to the older more elegant designs and at the same time, it does nothing for showing a modern, well put-together designe / layout.

Your grade from design school = C- .

Try again - but on second thought let the designer interns to the job because obviously the full-time designers missed the mark.

Regards,
A non-employee and realistic observation

As a former employee, subscriber and reader of The Virginian-Pilot, I believe the redesign of the pages looks horrible.

Did you let the interns do this?

My comment to another post on this site - "This does not reflect the community in its diversity...this reflects just bad design."

I came back for a visit to my home town and my old employer and newspaper. I found too many fonts for one page, poor information layout, bad looking callouts on pages, defective border spacing and lack of overall aesthetics with the paper.

All the positive comments on here were from planted Pilot employees. C'mon guys all those comments from you were totally transparent. The design has a feel of a bad 1990s website. Its too choppy and it does not do justice to the older more elegant previous designs and at the same time, it does nothing for showing a modern, well put-together design / layout.

Your grade from design school = C- .

Try again - but on second thought let the designer interns do the job because obviously the full-time designers missed the mark.

Regards,
Non employee and honest / realistic observern