Monday, September 22, 2008

Chocolate on Brussells sprouts

Relayed from an e-mail from retired NIU journalism prof Avi Bass:


The top editors of the Chicago Tribune are set to unveil the paper's new redesign on "Chicago Tonight" on Monday, September 22, at 7 p.m. on WTTW-11.

The show will be repeated at 1 and 4:30 a.m. Tuesday.

The redesign is set for launch this Sunday ... though you've probably noticed a soft rollout lately on portions of it. Basically, it's going to look a lot more like RedEye.

Question I've heard raised today: "Is the Trib selling out its older readers in an effort to reach younger people who aren't likely to read it anyway?"

I guess my thought is, does one have to equal the other? If you can package the same solid reporting in a visual way that will also engage younger readers, why wouldn't you? I do a design presentation where I liken it to putting chocolate sauce on Brussells sprouts to get people to eat the sprouts.

UPDATE 9/24: The redesign is now set to launch Monday, Sept. 29. Visualeditors.com's Charles Apple reveals a bunch of the new pages.

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