Opinion: Are redesigns working?

Essentially by focusing on the redesign, newspapers are missing the bigger picture - the fact that they need to transform, not just change the font.

Alan Mutter, a new-media consultant who writes the Reflections of a Newsosaur blog believes that "the Tribune redesign process wasn't really market-driven but rather simply done by the seat of the pants because it was felt that something had to be done.  That's a fairly dangerous way to run a multimillion-dollar business," he added.

Papers have been jumping to redesign in an effort to increase readership.  However, according to Norbert Ortiz, the Fort Lauderdale-based Sun Sentinel's vice president for circulation and consumer marketing, the paper has not seen any impact from the redesign.   In fact the Sentinel has lost even more subscribers since its redesign in August.

According to Alan Jacobson of Brass Tacks Design, the new designs are not even redesigns, but more of a "redecoration" because they have no significant content changes.

Mark Potts, an Internet and media consultant who now blogs at RecoveringJournalist.com, believes that "People's perceptions of how news is presented have changed because of the Web.  Doing things with smaller bytes and bigger headlines and more entry points and a little more clarity is a good thing. It's making it easier for a generation that's now Web-savvy to relate to what's going on in print."

Potts recognizes that "staying the same hurts," and any change is welcome.  But are newspapers going to be able to design themselves out of economic troubles?

Source: Portfolio