The redesign sucks. How many more bogus news papers do we need? Wasn't USA Today enough? Chicago already has that POS the Red Eye. This is the You Tubing/Face Booking of America. All flash, no facts. It SUCKS.

@Reader: All flash, no facts? The Bears/Eagles story is one of the deeper game recaps that I've seen in any newspaper. If they wanted to "Face Book" [sic] America, or even Chicago, they would have had a paragraph and a picture, along with a recap of the rest of the games from the NFL on Sunday.

This isn't to say that I enjoy the whole redesign, but as far as the Tribune Company is concerned, I think this might be their best redesign. Brighter, more colorful? Yes, but let's leave the USA Today remarks at the door. It was a revolution that happened more than twenty-five years ago.

Okay reader.

I actually like the redesign. Of course, a white background makes everything pop out more.

It feels a lot more european. the fact that there is more text on the inside pages, especially the tabs, where it feels like a front page. That must have take a lot of effort to produce each day. It's very clean and there's a nicer hierarchy of stories. The graphical elements are also well though-out.

The use of blue is pleasing, and not distracting.

Negatives:
The flag in the flag has been reduced to nothing. Might as well get rid of it. It looks out of place! Story count on the front is being sacrificed for teasers... but i like the magaziney aspect.

Overall, I really like it, but let's see how they can keep up the momentum in the long run!

I like the redesign, modern, easy to read, good colors. The open sections look a little small, but is neat and clean.
I like the Orange color in Live section.
Overall, is fine.

What planet do all the "designers" arrive from. This redesign is a joke, one of the best hard news papers has been reduced to a tabloid. How it looks in not the issue, they have dummed it down to the point that there is nothing to read. Designers, when will you get it, its about the EDITORIAL, not the look.

The Ol' Trib is now a cheesy tabloid. Big pictures & colorful logos use up gobs of space leaving little room for text - and text is what a newspaper is all about. All stories will now be the Readers Digest condensed version. Likewise, even the Comic section has been teenyified to the point where a magnifier is needed to read the things. Been a subscriber for many decades but, I fear, not for much longer. . . .

Nagio

Nagio Forbes and Richard:

Newspapers are not all about the editorial. If that were true, then people would pick up bland, text only newspapers and read them.

In fact, readers hardly read the stories at all. They read headlines, photos and captions. Fish around on the web for some newspaper focus groups and you will see that most readers actually think there is more inside of a newspaper that is designed like the new Chicago Tribune than with a New York Times design.

Readers scan, not read. Give them informational headlines, photos and captions and they might just read the story. Don't give them those things and they won't dig into their pockets to purchase the paper.

Newspapers should be for their readers, not for journalists.

I think this design is nice. I think they could have gone a little bolder with it too.

Hi, i'm a frontpage layout artist and a news photographer for a filipino-american community newspaper. i'm still working with our newspaper nameplate and studying what layout would catch public attention.

you may view my frontpage layout works at www.philippinemabuhaynews.com in printed version.

to layout a clean frontpage is quite hard sometimes.

One of the nicer redesigns I've seen in a long time. Zell's an asshole, and what they're doing in L.A. is a crime, but great looking paper here.
When will people stop equating attractive design with fluff? Looking good does not automatically imply that you have nothing to say.

Bill wrote: "When will people stop equating attractive design with fluff? Looking good does not automatically imply that you have nothing to say."

It doesn't have to be an either/or proposition, but in this case, sadly, it is. There were two (!) stories on the front page this morning. The rest was graphics, photos, and teasers to stuff inside. And once you got inside, there wasn't anything that you couldn't have found elsewhere.

This redesign was supposed to emphasize local news and get people to linger over the paper longer (all the better to see the ads that pay the bills). But there are now so many ads crammed together on the page with so little news that there's little to be gained from picking up the paper.

Maybe this will work for some people, and lord knows I want more folks reading newspapers, but the Tribune today is a waste of paper. I canceled my subscription this morning, and I've been reading newspapers for over forty years.

Are they out of their minds? I'm a college student, and my college carries the New York Times, USA Today, and two local papers. I see students reading the Times more than anything else, even USA Today. Business news should be in its own section, and celebrity news does not belong in a newspaper of the Tribune's caliber at all. And if the Trib spent half as much time changing their website as they did changing their physical product, they'd have the best website in the world. The dumbest man in America can navigate the sites of the New York Times, BBC, et al, but you practically have to be a computer programmer to figure out the Trib's site. And they wonder why they're in trouble. Apparently nobody told them substance still matters. And I bet the last time they changed their website layout, people were still using Netscape.

calling this redesign a "cheesy tabloid" is a bit of a stretch. compared to some bakersfield californian and new sun-sentinel fronts, this redesign is pretty restrained. i wish they hadn't used a different typeface for the teasers (which is the same as the inside headers, so it's a little confusing). and when skimming through it, there are so many different folio styles going on, it's hard to keep up with which section you're in. but overall the look is nice and clean.

the new hartford courant masthead really is tragic.

"In fact, readers hardly read the stories at all."

Well, we now know Taylor Loran has no clue. Thanks for sharing that, Taylor.

"The Bears/Eagles story is one of the deeper game recaps that I've seen in any newspaper."

Nice try, Nic B., but the Tribune decided last season to stop doing game recaps. Likely you just glanced at the page, saw a second-day column, and thought you could sound as if you knew what you were talking about.

Taylor Loran and Nic B.: They're dumb, and they won't get any smarter.

I started every day reading the Trib cover to cover. I've lived in a lot of cities, and the Trib was the best paper I've ever read on a long term basis, along with the Cleveland Plain Dealer a couple of decades ago.

I loathe the redesign. I feel confused and unable to find the features I liked so much. It's not so much the color and graphics-tho I dont care for those much either. My major dislike is for the jumbled up nature of the new paper. The old format, with the first section devoted to news of all over and the editorial pages, then the local section...why mess with something that worked so well? Now the editorials are immediately preceeded by a couple pages of obituaries.

I havent been able to read the thing from cover to cover yet. It's just too tiresome.

The new Trib sucks. If you listen to WBBM AM on the way to work you hear all the local stories that are important,so why read them? I subscibe to read in depth features and learn things that I did'nt even know I wanted to know. Now after reading a piece in the paper I feel as though I've read half the story. The sports section seems the same, but I only look at that if I have time (not usually the case). Please, Please give us our paper back. By the way I am investigating home delivery of the New York Times, Don't want to do it, bUt I won't continue to spend money on rubbish for much longer!

I must say it looks very trendy... Is this the way that all the news papers are gona go? I am not from US but from Europe and I have seen examples like this all over the world. Serious looking newspapers are looking more alike web pages. Maybe thats the way of the future. The look and feel thats familiar to the next generation of readers that grew up with web as something normal... Age of old dinosaur look newspapers is coming to an end. Is it good or bad I dont know.

When will the experiment end? When all the readers are gone? Is that the end-game?

I agree with whoever wrote above about young people reading the times, you know the black and white boring newspaper - I see more NYT in Chicago now than Tribunes. In my building its 2:1 NYT over Trib in the hallways. You know why? The NYT is a black and white boring newspaper with news inside - thats why people buy it. Its boring and logical and when you finish one column you can simply move to the next instead of playing find the information between the ads, oversized photos and graphs for gradeschoolers.

I hate the new Chicago Tribune. Last September the editors and PR at Tribune told the readers that the paper was redesigned to make it more organized and easier to read.

How much more organized can you get with a Main Section, a Local Section, a Business Section, a Sports Section, a Classified Section, and a Arts/Culture Section (Tempo)? Seems pretty organized to me. More readable? How unreadabel was the old Chicago Tribune? I must be an exceptional person--I was able to stumble thru an unreadable, disorganized newspaper for over 35 years. And I enjoyed it. I have stopped buying the Chicago Tribune.

Anthony John

I hate the new Chicago Tribune. Last September the editors and PR at Tribune told the readers that the paper was redesigned to make it more organized and easier to read.

How much more organized can you get with a Main Section, a Local Section, a Business Section, a Sports Section, a Classified Section, and an Arts/Culture Section (Tempo)? Seems pretty organized to me. More readable? How unreadable was the old Chicago Tribune? I must be an exceptional person--I was able to stumble thru an unreadable, disorganized newspaper for over 35 years. And I enjoyed it. I have stopped buying the Chicago Tribune.

Anthony John